Acupoint herbal patching for postherpetic neuralgia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This study aimed to systematically evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of acupoint herbal patching in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia.

Eight databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-Fang Database, China Biomedical Literature Service System, and Chongqing VIP Chinese Science were searched. The search time was set to October 2023. Two researchers independently screened the literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria; extracted the basic information, acupoints, Chinese herbal medicine, pain score, sleep score, depression score, and other information of the subjects, and independently assessed the risk of bias by 2 researchers. Meta-analysis of the included studies was performed using the StataMP 16 software.

Fifteen studies with 1362 participants were included in this meta-analysis. Ashi is the acupoint frequency at the forefront, and Borneol is the Chinese herbal medicine frequency at the forefront. The acupoint herbal patching group showed significant improvements in visual analog score (SMD: -2.09; 95% Cl: -2.77, -1.42; P < .001), sleep score (SMD: -1.58; 95% Cl: -2.11, -1.05; P < .001), depression score (SMD: -1.61; 95% Cl: -2.22, -0.99; P < .001), Chinese medicine syndrome score (SMD: -2.32; 95% Cl: -2.84, -1.80; P = .06), dermatology life quality index (weighted mean differences: -4.11; 95% Cl: -4.58, -3.63; P = .98), and related laboratory indicators compared to the control group, and the total effective rate was significantly higher (relative risk: 1.20; 95% confidence interval: 1.15, 1.26; P = .99) than the control group. Two studies reported adverse reactions, but the 2 groups were not statistically significant.

Acupoint herbal patching intervention in postherpetic neuralgia is effective in improving the pain, sleep, anxiety, depression, quality of life of patients, and related laboratory indicators.