[Systematic review and Meta-analysis on chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression treated with acupuncture]

To review systematically the effectiveness of acupuncture in treatment of chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression.

From the date of database establishment to April 1, 2020, the articles on randomized controlled trials of chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression were retrieved by computer from the following databases, i.e. PubMed, Cochrane central register of controlled trials (CENTRAL), EMbase, cumulative index to nursing & allied health literature (CINAHL), JBI database of systematic reviews and implementation reports, CNKI, Wanfang, VIP and SinoMed. Using RevMan5.3, Meta-analysis was conducted. With GRADEpro GDT, the evidence quality was evaluated.

A total of 12 articles were included, 10 articles of which were analyzed by quantitative Meta-analysis. Compared with the control group, the improvements in the decrease of post-chemotherapy leukocyte (P<0.01, MD=0.88, 95%CI=[0.71, 1.05]) and platelet (P<0.01, MD=25.91, 95%CI=[16.86, 34.97]) were better in the observation group. The difference in reducing hemoglobin was not significant between the two groups (P>0.05, MD=2.19, 95%CI=[-1.22, 5.61]). Regarding the improvement in the decrease of post-chemotherapy neutrophile granulocyte (P=0.03, MD=0.40, 95%CI=[0.04, 0.77]) and erythrocyte (P=0.03，MD=0.15，95%CI=[0.01, 0.28]), Karnofsky score (P<0.01, MD=4.19, 95%CI=[3.40, 4.98]) and quality of life (QOL) score (P<0.01, MD=5.01，95%CI=[1.61, 8.42]), the effects in the observation group were better than those in the control group.

Acupuncture alleviates the decrease of leukocyte, platelet, neutrophile granulocyte and erythrocyte counts and improves the survival quality of patients with chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression.