Song ShiWei, Hao WenFeng, Fu HongFang
Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sichuan Taikang Hospital, Chengdu, China.
Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sichuan Cancer Hospital & Institute, Sichuan Cancer Center, Affiliated Cancer Hospital of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2024 Dec 4;11:1473847. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1473847. eCollection 2024.
Numerous clinical studies have shown that patients suffering from functional constipation can benefit by combining medication with acupuncture. There have been no published reviews or meta-analyses regarding the use of acupuncture in treating functional constipation in older adults. Therefore, we carried out a meta-analysis to assess the impact of acupuncture on elderly patients dealing with functional constipation.
This study retrieved randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on acupuncture therapy for functional constipation in the elderly from several electronic databases, including Embase, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Wanfang Database, Chinese BioMedical Literature Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. In these databases, clinical investigators evaluated the effectiveness of acupuncture as a primary treatment for elderly people with functional constipation. was used by researchers to evaluate the quality of the study.
A total of 469 elderly individuals were included in 8 RCTs. The meta-analysis yielded compelling findings: the application of acupuncture has significantly elevated the rates of treatment effectiveness compared to the control group. Compared with the control group, the treatment group exhibited a statistically significant difference in complete spontaneous bowel movements after treatment. The two groups showed no significant difference in spontaneous bowel movements. However, there was a significant difference in the Bristol Stool Scale scores. The Defecation Difficulty Score and Patient Assessment of Constipation Quality of Life (PAC-QOL) showed -values that indicated no significant effect. However, acupuncture improved bowel movements, demonstrating a significant difference in the Clinic Constipation Score (CCS) when comparing the two groups. The Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) and 5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) contents changed significantly after intervention in both groups. An article reported that the improvement of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) symptom scores was better in the treatment group than in the control group.
The analysis results indicated that acupuncture can be beneficial for elderly people with functional constipation; however, strong and comprehensive data are not yet obtainable. Given that our study is based on evidence that is of a low-to-moderate quality, further high-quality research is necessary to enhance the feasibility and practicability of this treatment.
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, identifier CRD42024533215.
众多临床研究表明，功能性便秘患者药物治疗与针灸相结合可从中获益。目前尚无关于针灸治疗老年功能性便秘的综述或荟萃分析。因此，我们进行了一项荟萃分析，以评估针灸对老年功能性便秘患者的影响。
本研究从多个电子数据库中检索了关于老年功能性便秘针灸治疗的随机对照试验（RCT），包括Embase、PubMed、Cochrane图书馆、万方数据库、中国生物医学文献数据库和中国知网。在这些数据库中，临床研究人员评估了针灸作为老年功能性便秘主要治疗方法的有效性。研究人员使用[具体评估方法未给出]来评估研究质量。
8项RCT共纳入469名老年人。荟萃分析得出了令人信服的结果：与对照组相比，针灸的应用显著提高了治疗有效率。与对照组相比，治疗组治疗后完全自主排便率有统计学显著差异。两组自主排便率无显著差异。然而，布里斯托大便分类法评分有显著差异。排便困难评分和便秘患者生活质量评估（PAC-QOL）显示[具体数值未给出]表明无显著效果。然而，针灸改善了排便情况，两组比较时临床便秘评分（CCS）有显著差异。两组干预后一氧化氮合酶（NOS）和5-羟色胺（5-HT）含量均有显著变化。一篇文章报道治疗组中医症状评分改善优于对照组。
分析结果表明针灸对老年功能性便秘患者有益；然而，尚未获得强有力的综合数据。鉴于我们的研究基于低至中等质量的证据，有必要进行进一步的高质量研究，以提高这种治疗方法的可行性和实用性。
