EFFICACY AND SAFETY OF ACUPUNCTURE IN THE TREATMENT OF PARKINSON'S: A META-ANALYSIS

Ying Wei^{1, *}, Qingping Yao¹, Pengfei Zhang², Shuli Guo¹

¹Department of encephalopathy I, Tianjin Beichen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Tianjin, 300400, China - ²Department of Brain surgery, Tianjin Beichen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Tianjin, 300400, China

Background: There is a lot of acupuncture treatment for Parkinson's disease in China, but its efficacy remains unclear. The purpose of our study was to determine whether acupuncture is effective and safe for treating Parkinson's

Methods: The search was conducted in six databases between database creation and February 2022 for randomized controlled trials related to acupuncture for Parkinson's. Search terms were established for two different areas (Parkinson's and acupuncture). The data were extracted by two independent authors after screening all identified citations. The methodological quality of included studies was evaluated by the Cochrane criteria.

Results: In accordance with inclusion and exclusion standards, 16 studies with a total of 1008 individuals were examined, and the majority of the studies had significant methodological weaknesses. According to the findings of this study, acupuncture alone is not superior to sham-controls in terms of improving UPDRS-III (MD=-3.08, 95% CI: 7.96 to 1.80, I²=25%, P=0.25), Speed, Cadence, Step length and PDQ-39 (MD=-1.74, 95% CI: 6.38 to 2.89, I2=0%, P=0.45). Acupuncture alone did not improve Speed, Cadence, or Step length more than conventional drugs did. Nevertheless,adjuvant acupuncture may increase the effectiveness of drugs on enhancing UPDRS-III (MD=-3.05, 95% CI:-5.80 to–0.29, I²=89%, P<.0001), Speed (MD =0.54, 95% CI:-0.37 to 1.45, I²=87%, P=0.005), Step length (MD =0.06, 95% CI:0.05 to 0.08, I²=1%, P=0.37), Cognitive functions (MD=1.65, 95% CI:1.27 to 2.04, I²= 29%, P=0.24) and PDQ-39 (MD =-9.69, 95% CI:-11.48 to -7.90, I²= 0%, P=0.37).

Conclusion: It has been found that adjunctive acupuncture may improve motor function, gait disorders, cognitive functioning, and quality of life in patients with PD. In all of the evaluated outcomes, however, there was no notable change between acupuncture single therapy and sham controls or standard Parkinson's drugs in this study. This link requires us to advocate acupuncture as adjuvant therapy in PD and look into other studies comparing acupuncture and sham-controls or conventional drugs to reach the optimum procedure.