Assessment of Acupoint Therapy of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Cough Variant Asthma: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Acupoint application has been used in China to treat various illnesses for ages. In cough variant asthma (CVA), the main clinical sign is episodic night cough. Acupoint application therapy of traditional Chinese medicine is an effective procedure to treat cough variant asthma. The current study is designed to systematically assess the effectiveness of acupoint application therapy in traditional medicine for patients with cough variant asthma. The comprehensive computer retrieval related to comparison between acupoint application and nonacupoint application therapy for cough variant asthma was carried out in various databases ($n=8$) from database establishment until July 4, 2021. Both English and Chinese articles about original investigations in humans were searched. Two independent authors extracted the data, and disagreements were resolved by discussion. ReviewManager 5.3 software provided by Cochrane did a meta-analysis of selected randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Quality of experimentation and risk bias were analyzed by the Cochrane Handbook tool. A total of thirteen randomized controlled clinical articles along with 1237 patients were included in the study. Findings of meta-analysis showed that compared with nonacupoint application treatment, the total effective rate of acupoint application treatment is more effective ($\text{RD}=0.13$, 95% CI (0.09, 0.17),$Z=6.70$,$P<0.00001$). Besides, acupoint application can improve patients’ lung function, the lung function index FVC ($\text{mean}\text{difference}=0.55$, 95% confidence interval (0.42, 0.68),$Z=8.40$,$P<0.00001$), FEV1 ($\text{MD}=0.35$, 95% CI (0.23, 0.47),$Z=5.86$,$P<0.00001$), FEV1/FVC (%) ($\text{MD}=12.68$, 95% CI (4.32, 21.03),$Z=2.97$,$P=0.003$), FEV1 (%) ($\text{MD}=8.63$, 95% CI (8.01, 9.25),$Z=27.44$,$P<0.00001$), and PEF (day) ($\text{MD}=0.62$, 95% CI (0.52, 0.71),$Z=12.40$,$P<0.00001$) of patients treated by acupoint application therapy were increased. Moreover, acupoint application might lower the level of immunoglobulin E ($\text{MD}=-54.58$, 95% CI (−63.54, −45.61),$Z=11.93$,$P<0.00001$) and EOS ($\text{MD}=-0.21$, 95% CI (−0.35, −0.06),$Z=2.77$,$P=0.006$). The LCQ (Leicester cough questionnaire) total score of CVA patients was also increased ($\text{MD}=2.30$, 95% CI (1.55, 3.06),$Z=5.98$,$P<0.00001$). Acupoint application therapy is effective in controlling symptoms of CVA. It also has a positive effect in improving lung function and life quality of patients. It can reduce the eosinophil levels and peripheral blood IgE levels of patients as well.