• Qingyun Wan, Hao Chen, Xiaoqiu Wang, Hanqing Xi, Shiyu Zheng, Shuting Luo, Wenzhong Wu, and Rui Pan.
• Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Jan 28; 101 (4): e27965e27965.

BackgroundPain is a common and distressing symptom experienced by cancer patients. Previous research found acupuncture was associated with significant reductions in pain intensity and opioid use. Acupuncture therapies are various, and the difference in efficacy and safety has never been assessed. This paper aims to assess and rank the effectiveness of the different acupuncture methods and provide an acupuncture treatment guideline for relieving chronic pain in cancer survivors.MethodsFour English databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library, and Web of Science) and 4 Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database) will be searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from the database inception to November 30, 2021. The primary outcomes will be patient-reported pain intensity measured by the Brief Pain Inventory, Visual Analog Scale, Verbal Rating Scale, Numerical Rating Scale, and other valid outcome measures. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, and Development and Evaluation System will evaluate the quality of evidence. Bayesian network meta-analysis will be performed in WinBUGS V.1.4.3 to determine the comparative effectiveness of the acupuncture therapies.ResultsThis study will quantify the effectiveness of each acupuncture intervention for chronic cancer pain with pain scores and the use of analgesics. The adverse events of acupuncture treatment for cancer pain will also be reported.ConclusionThe conclusion of our study will help physicians and patients choose suitable acupuncture methods to manage cancer pain.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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