The effectiveness and safety of acupuncture therapy for Guillain-Barré syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Abstract

Background: Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is the most common acute paralytic neuropathy. Many clinical trials indicate acupuncture provides a good effect as a complementary therapy of Western medicine for GBS. The objective of this systematic review protocol is to provide the evidence to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture on the treatment of GBS.

Methods: We will search relevant randomized controlled trials investigating the effect of acupuncture for GBS in following databases from start to October 2019: PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, CINAHL Complete, National Digital Science Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Database without language restriction. For articles that meet our inclusion criteria, 2 researchers will extract the data information independently, and assess the risk of bias and trial quality by the Cochrane collaboration's tool. All data will be analyzed by RevMan V.5.3.3 statistical software.

Results: According to the Barthel index of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) muscle scale, the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for GBS will be determined in this study.

Conclusion: This systemic review will provide high quality evidence to judging whether acupuncture provides benefits to treat GBS.Prospero registration number: CRD42019158710.

Figure 1

Flow diagram of study selection process.