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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Obstetrics and Gynecology
Volume 12 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1545146
Systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of moxibustion therapy for primary dysmenorrhea
Provisionally accepted
ShiWei Song 1*
Hao Chen 2- 1 Sichuan Taikang Hospital, Chengdu, China
- 2 Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Background: Primary dysmenorrhea is a common gynecological disease. Compared with traditional Chinese medicine treatment, moxibustion has advantages as a main treatment method. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of simple moxibustion therapy for primary dysmenorrhea.Methods: Randomized controlled trials were searched from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, The Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-fang database and VIP database.In the literature included in these databases, clinical reporters evaluated the efficacy of moxibustion as the treatment for primary dysmenorrhea. All included literature was assessed for risk bias by using Risk of Bias assessment tool 2.0, and meta-analysis was conducted using Rev Man 5.4.Results: The findings demonstrated that the moxibustion group exhibited a statistically significant response in comparison to the control group. The improvement observed in the Cox Menstrual Symptom Scale and the visual analogue scale score between the two groups exhibited heterogeneity, with a statistically significant difference noted. In terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine symptom scores, the experimental group demonstrated superiority over the control group. Furthermore, the progesterone levels in the moxibustion treatment were found to be higher than in the control group, while the estrogen levels in the experimental group were lower than in the control group, with a statistically significant difference observed (P<0.05). Conversely, the levels of β-EP and PGE2 in the observation group were higher than those in the control group. Conclusion: Moxibustion therapy shows significantly better efficacy in treating primary dysmenorrhea. However, a large sample, multi-center, high-quality RCT is still needed to evaluate its safety and efficacy. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO, identifier no. CRD42024580466.
Keywords: Moxibustion, Primary dysmenorrhea, Systematic review, Meta-analysis, randomized controlled trials
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 04 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Song and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
ShiWei Song, Sichuan Taikang Hospital, Chengdu, China
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