ReviewJournal of pain research2025
Auricular Acupuncture for Perioperative Pain Management: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
Review in Journal of pain research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Complementary medicine as a holistic approach for pain management in heart and lung transplantation.JHLT open · 2026Article
- Therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for acute pain in the emergency department.Integrative medicine research · 2026Review
- Multimodal Perioperative Management of Elderly Hip Fracture Patients: Integrating Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine Approaches for Sleep, Pain, and PONV Control: A Narrative Review.Journal of pain research · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: We conducted a more comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of auricular acupuncture (AA) in perioperative pain management. Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) findings were retrieved from the Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, Web of Science, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Wanfang, VIP, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases from their inception to March 2024 using the search terms "pain", "auriculotherapy", and "randomized controlled trial". The experimental group was treated with AA alone or in combination with analgesic drugs, whereas the control group was treated with sham auricular acupuncture, placebo, conventional treatment, or no treatment. The primary outcome was the perioperative pain score. The secondary outcomes were analgesic requirements, anxiety score, and adverse events (AEs). RevMan version 5.4 was used for data analysis. Results: The analysis included a total of 21 RCTs with 1527 participants. AA was superior to the control group for reducing pain intensity (mean difference [MD]= -0.44; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.72 to -0.17) and analgesic requirement (standardized mean difference [SMD]= -0.88, 95% CI: -1.29 to -0.46). Perioperative anxiety improvement did not differ significantly between the AA and control groups (MD= -5.45, 95% CI: -32.99 to 22.09). Subgroup analysis showed that AA exerted a significant analgesic effect as a preoperative intervention and in orthopedic surgery. The results of the sensitivity analysis demonstrated the stability of the results of the meta-analysis. AA-related AEs were mainly nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness. None of the patients in the experimental group dropped out of the trial due to AA-related AEs. Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that AA may be a promising treatment option for improving perioperative pain with few AEs. However, owing to the low quality of the current evidence, large-sample, high-quality RCTs are needed to prove this conclusion.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.