Acupuncture for Atopic Dermatitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: Atopic dermatitis, also known as the "ectopic dermatitis", which is a kind of intense itching, chronic and recurrent skin disease. In recent years, numerous clinical studies have reported that acupuncture is effective for Atopic dermatitis. This paper aims to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of Atopic dermatitis by a systematic review. Methods: A search was performed in various worldwide databases for randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for treating atopic dermatitis. Databases are Chinese Biomedical Literature database, China Academic Journal, Chinese Biomedical database, Cochrane Central Register of controlled trials database, PubMed database, Embase medical database. Two review authors independently selected the trials. The risk of bias was evaluated by Cochrane reviews handbook 5.2.0 and the statistics and Meta analysis was analyzed by Review Manage 5.2.0 software or separate descriptive analysis. Results: Totally 5 articles involving 285 cases were included. Acupuncture was safe in the treatment of atopic dermatitis. The total effective rate of acupuncture group was better than controlled group, OR=3.7 (CI:[1.74,7.84]). 3 reports on no side-effect were described in 5 articles. Conclusion: Acupuncture is effective in the treatment of atopic dermatitis, but it is not definite due to relatively low level of evidence. More high-quality evidences are needed to further confirm this.