Acupuncture for vertebrobasilar insufficiency vertigo: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

Vertebrobasilar insufficiency vertebrobasilar (VBIV) is a serious nerve disease and many old people suffer from it. Acupuncture has been widely applied in the treatment of VBIV. However, to our knowledge, there has been no systematic review or meta-analysis of randomized controlled trails regarding the effectiveness of this treatment. Here, we provide a protocol to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for VBIV.

Relevant randomized controlled trials in 5 databases (EMBASE, PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials [Cochrane Library], Chinese Biomedical Literature Database [CBM], China National Knowledge Infrastructure [CNKI]) will be comprehensively searched by 2 researchers in December 2017. The clinical efficacy will be accepted as the primary outcomes. We will also use RevMan V.5.3 software to compute the data synthesis carefully when a meta-analysis is allowed.

This study will provide a high-quality synthesis of current evidence of acupuncture for VBIV from several aspects including clinical efficacy, the blood flow velocity of the left vertebral artery (LVA), the right vertebral artery (RVA), the basilar artery (BA)and adverse events.

The conclusion of our systematic review will provide evidence to judge whether acupuncture is an effective and safety intervention for patient with VBIV.