• Junyu Cui, Jiaxin Wang, Ying Wang, Chuang Zhang, Guanyu Hu, and Zhihong Wang.
• Department of Acupuncture and Tuina, Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, Changchun, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Oct 28; 101 (43): e31597e31597.

BackgroundFunctional dyspepsia (FD) is a common digestive system disease in pediatrics, usually affects normal growth and increases health care expenditure. Many investigations have demonstrated that external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has certain advantages in the treatment of FD children, but the effectiveness, safety, and advantages of various methods have not been confirmed by high-quality meta-analyses. This study will conduct a systematic review and network meta-analysis to evaluate the differences and effectiveness in external treatments of TCM, in order to provide a reference for further clinical treatment for FD in children.MethodsNine electronic databases, including PubMed, Medline, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Wan-Fang Database and one clinical trial register platforms: ClinicalTrials.gov (www.ClinicalTrials.gov/) will be searched using English and Chinese search strategies. All eligible studies are randomized controlled trials of TCM external treatment for FD in children, published on or before July 20, 2022. The screening process will be developed by 2 independent authors, and network meta-analysis will be performed with RevMan (V5.3) software.ResultsThis study will provide a high-quality synthesis to assess the effectiveness and safety on the external treatment of TCM for children with FD.ConclusionThe results of this study will provide evidence to judge whether the external treatment of TCM are effective interventions for children with FD.Ethics And DisseminationThe results of this meta-analysis and meta-regression will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at a relevant conference. The information used in the network meta-analysis does not contain individual patient data. Therefore, ethical approval was not required.Prospero Registration NumberCRD42022360429.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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