External Therapy of Chinese Medicine for Herpes Zoster: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Wu L, Chen Y, Man T, Jin L, Xu Z, Lv L, Luo J, Zhu T · Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine · 2022 March 10

DOI 10.1155/2022/3487579

Objective

To investigate the safety and efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of herpes zoster (HZ).

Conclusions

Acupuncture therapy showed higher clinical cure rates, lower visual analog scale scores, and a significant reduction in the incidence of post-herpetic neuralgia compared to conventional pharmacotherapy for herpes zoster. Acupuncture was also found to be cost-effective with fewer adverse reactions.

Critical Appraisal

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Insights

Acupuncture effectively treats herpes zoster with less side effects and costs compared to conventional antiviral therapy.

In the methodology of this review, various sources of randomized controlled trials were evaluated comparing acupuncture to traditional antiviral medicine for the treatment of Herpes Zoster. The digital databases used for the search included Embase, PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Knowledge, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and China Biology Medicine Disc. Data were extracted and the risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane's Risk of Bias tool. The review integrated data from 15 trials, giving a total of 1811 participants. The results showed that acupuncture as a control group had a higher clinical cure rate than Western medicine therapy. Also, a meta-analysis showed a significant reduction in the incidence of Postherpetic Neuralgia in participants who received acupuncture therapy compared to those who received pharmacotherapy. Moreover, according to the reported economic indicators, acupuncture therapy cost less and had fewer adverse reactions compared to the conventional antiviral therapy. However, due to the risk of bias and imprecision of the included studies, a concrete conclusion is to be considered with caution.