ReviewJournal of pain research2025
Efficacy of Acupuncture in Treating Nape Back Myofascial Pain Syndrome: a Comprehensive Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
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, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Efficacy of acupuncture as adjunctive therapy for patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- The perspective of manual therapy as a fascia-directed biomechanical intervention in myofascial pain syndrome.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- The risk factors of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture accompanied with thoracolumbar fascial injury: a single-center retrospective study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Acupuncture, in particular, has received increasing attention in pain management in traditional medicine treatments. This study evaluated the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating nape back myofascial pain syndrome (MPS). Methods: The literature on randomized controlled trials of acupuncture in the treatment of nape back MPS was retrieved by searching nine databases. Review Manager 5.4 software was used to merge and statistically analyze the extracted data, and Stata 18.0 was used to assess the risk of bias. Results: Finally, 10 randomized controlled trials were included, with a total of 624 samples. The meta-analysis results indicated that acupuncture therapy could lower the NDI score [MD=-6.64, 95% CI (-10.95, -2.33), Z = 3.02, P = 0.003]. Acupuncture demonstrated superiority over the control group in addressing nape back myofascial pain condition, which reflected that the VAS score of the acupuncture treatment group was significantly lower than that of other treatment controls [SMD=-0.71, 95% CI (-1.07, -0.36), Z = 3.94, P < 0.0001]. Furthermore, in contrast to the control group, the improvement of PPT and right flexion CROM and rotation CROM in the acupuncture group was more evident (PPT: [MD = 0.95, 95% CI (0.63, 1.27), P < 0.001]) (right flexion CROM: [MD = 4.86, 95% CI (1.61, 8.12), P = 0.003]), (rotation CROM: [MD = 0.52, 95% CI (0.43,0.61), P < 0.00001]). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that acupuncture is more effective in treating nape back MPS than the control group and provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating nape back MPS, filling a gap in the treatment of nape back MPS by Traditional Chinese Medicine.
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Registered trials
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