Clinical effect of governor meridian moxibustion on treatment of lumbar disc protrusion: A meta analysis

Objective:To explore the clinical effect of governor meridian moxibustion on lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion.Methods:Randomized controlled trials on treatment of lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion with governor meridian moxibustion and combined governor meridian moxibustion were retrieved from CNKI,VIP,Wan Fang Data,CBM,Web of ScienceTM Core Collection,EBSCO Medline,PubMed,OVID,the Cochrane Library,and other databases.The time was from the inception of the database until October 2021.The studies were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria,extracted,and evaluated for quality assessment.The data were analyzed with Review Manager 5.3 software.Results:A total of 24 randomized controlled trials(2379 cases in total)were included.Meta-analysis results showed that compared with control groups such as acupuncture,electroacupuncture,and massage,the governor meridian treatment improved the clinical efficacy[RR=1.17,95%CI(1.13,1.20),P<0.001],relieved patients'pain[MD=-1.56,95%CI(-1.89,-1.22),P<0.001],and improved patients’dysfunction to a certain extent[MD=4.84,95%CI(3.87,5.82),P<0.001].Funnel plot analysis showed that the included literature may be potentially biased in publication.Conclusion:Governor meridian moxibustion has a significant effect on the treatment of lumbar disc protrusion and is worthy of widespread use.However,given the small number of high-quality literature included in the study,the small sample size,and the short follow-up time,high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to further study the long-term therapeutic effect of governor meridian moxibustion.