Efficacy and Safety of Acupuncture for Tourette Syndrome in Children: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

Despite the widespread use of acupuncture, its effectiveness and safety in treating Tourette syndrome (TS) remain controversial. Our research seeks to further evaluate the safety and effectiveness of acupuncture as a replacement therapy approach for children with TS. We conducted a comprehensive search for studies published from their inception to October 2023. The statistical analysis and subgroup analysis were conducted by software. Conduct a meta-analysis on the extracted data using the appropriate effect models. The meta-analysis was conducted on 26 studies consisting 1862 pediatric patients, which were selected from 976 identified articles. Acupuncture group demonstrated a significantly lower risk with a risk ratio (RR) of 0.29 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.19, 0.44, P < .0001), with only 5% of participants experiencing adverse reactions. Acupuncture treatment resulted in an 18% improvement in total effectiveness rates (RR = 1.18, 95% CI = [1.12, 1.25], P < .00001). The pooled data demonstrated that acupuncture therapy had a significant advantage in reducing the total score with the weighted mean difference (WMD) -4.92 (95% CI = [-6.38, -3.45], P < .00001) of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), the motor tic scores (WMD = -2.24, 95% CI = [-3.14, -1.35], P < .00001), the vocal tic scores (WMD: -2.34, 95% CI = [-3.31, -1.37], P < .00001), and the Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome Scores (TCMSS) (WMD: -2.47, 95% CI = [-2.87, -2.07], P < .0001). This meta-analysis reveals that acupuncture is more effective than most existing treatments in mitigating the symptoms of motor and vocal tics in children with TS, while also reducing the incidence of adverse reactions.