Comparative efficacy of different acupuncture therapies on cancer-related insomnia: protocol for a systematic review...

Cancer-related insomnia (CRI), as a common complication in cancer survivors, may further lead to depression, anxiety and other symptoms. Acupuncture therapy is a promising therapeutic strategy for CRI. The effectiveness of acupuncture therapy on CRI has been validated by several relevant meta-analyses. Questions remain, however, including which acupuncture regimen is optimal. We aim to conduct the first network meta-analysis to compare different acupuncture therapies, rank their effectiveness and assess which approach could be optimal for treatment of CRI.

A comprehensive search of PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, VIP Database (China Science and Technology Journal Database), and China Biology Medicine (from inception until 1 March 2022) will be carried out to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture therapy for insomnia in cancer survivors, reported in English or Chinese. Reviews, animal studies, non-RCT studies, editorials and other secondary insomnia studies will be excluded. The primary outcome measure will be the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Pairwise meta-analysis will be performed in Stata and network meta-analysis by OpenBUGS, R and Stata. Network plots and funnel plots will be used to show the scale of studies and participants for each intervention and the potential publication bias, respectively. Both heterogeneity and consistency will be evaluated by R. ORs with 95% CIs and mean differences with 95% CI will be calculated in OpenBUGS and transformed into league figure and surface under the cumulative ranking by Stata to visualise the results.

Ethical committee approval for this review is unnecessary since the data used will be extracted from pre-existing literature. The results will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at international academic conferences.