• Song Wang, Zhuang Xiong, Yangyang Liu, Yan Leng, Houbo Deng, Dong Shen, Xiangtong Meng, and Tiejun Liu.
• Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, 1035 Bo Shuo Road, Changchun City, Jilin Province, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Oct 29; 100 (43): e27659e27659.

BackgroundPrimary liver cancer (PLC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world, and its incidence and fatality rate are increasing year by year. Due to the large population base in China, the aging population is severely affected by environmental pollution, eating habits, and unhealthy lifestyles. And many other influences have caused the number of new PLC cases and deaths in China to rank first in the world. Acupuncture combined with external application of Chinese medicine to treat PLC is currently one of the commonly used treatments in China. However, this combined treatment still lacks evidence-based medicine support. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture combined with external application of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of PLC.MethodWe will search PubMed, Web of Science, GCBI, Embase, OVID, AMED, Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP, CBM, and Wanfang databases. As of September 15, 2021, there are no restrictions on search language, publication time, and publication status. We will use the following medical keywords to search, including: "acupuncture", "external application of traditional Chinese medicine", and "primary liver cancer". At the same time, we will manually search all reference lists from relevant systematic reviews to find other eligible studies. We will use the random effects model in REVMAN v5.3 for meta-analysis. The study for acupuncture combined with Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of PLC was a randomized controlled study. Two researchers will independently review the research selection, data extraction, and research quality assessments. Finally, we will observe the outcome measures.ResultsThis study will provide evidence-based guidance for the treatment of PLC with acupuncture and the external application of traditional Chinese medicine and offers new ideas and methods for the treatment of PLC.Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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