Evidence based acupuncture practice recommendations for peripheral facial paralysis.

The objective is to analyze the treatment used in relatively high quality randomized controlled trials to identify any similarities of therapeutic approaches and subsequently present recommendations for a standard acupuncture procedure for the treatment of peripheral facial paralysis (PFP). We searched Chinese and English language literatures through MEDLINE (January 1966 to October 2007), EMbase (January 1980 to October 2007), Chinese Biomedical Database (January 1978 to October 2007) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (January 1979 to October 2007) for randomized controlled trials. With independent assessment by 2 observers, 33 of 386 originally identified articles were finally included. The extracted information from these articles was focused on the selection of meridians and acupoints, types of stimulation and duration of treatment. On the whole, when treating PFP, the best acupoints options are Dicang (ST4), Xiaguan (ST7), Jiache (ST6), Chengjiang (CV24), Yingxiang (LI20), Quanliao (SI18), Yifeng (TE17), Yangbai (GB14), Sibai (ST2), Fengchi (GB20), Shuigou (GV26), Yuyao (EX-HN4) and Hegu (LI4). Manual stimulation or electro-acupuncture combined with moxibustion is recommended. Moreover, the suggested duration of acupuncture treatment refers to once a day, 10 times for each course, 2 to 5 days as courses interval, and 20 to 40 treatments in total.