An assessment of methodological quality of systematic reviews of acupuncture and related therapies for cancer-related pain.

Objective: There currently exist many systematic reviews aimed at assessing acupuncture and related therapy effectiveness in cancer-related pain management. However, the methodological quality of existing systematic reviews remains unclear. The purpose of this review was to summarize and evaluate the methodological quality of these systematic reviews and meta-analyses papers.

Methods: A comprehensive search on multiple databases was performed using Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR).

Results: Fourteen systematic reviews published between 2005 and 2017 were eligible for inclusion. The consensus across the included reviews was that acupuncture and related therapies alone did not have superior pain-relieving effects as compared with analgesic administration using various validated pain scales. However, as compared with analgesic administration alone, acupuncture and related therapies plus analgesics resulted in reduced cancer related-pain.

Conclusions: The study findings emphasized that acupuncture and related therapies alone did not have clinically significant effects at cancer-related pain reduction as compared with analgesic administration alone. Clinicians may consider acupuncture and related therapies as adjunctive therapies for cancer-related pain management, in particular, when pain control is unsatisfactory under analgesics alone. Furthermore, the researchers should conduct the SRs and meta-analyses according to the AMSTAR and PRISMA.