• Hesol Lee, Boram Lee, Sun Haeng Lee, and Gyu Tae Chang.
• Clinical Research Coordinating Team, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 16; 101 (50): e31746e31746.

BackgroundAnorexia in children can cause malnutrition, low immunity, growth retardation, and various secondary infections, resulting in a huge burden on society. In East Asia, Chuna manual therapy has been widely used for the treatment of childhood anorexia. We aimed to comprehensively evaluate the effects of Chuna manual therapy for treating childhood anorexia.MethodsTwelve databases were comprehensively searched from their inception to September 13, 2022. Only randomized controlled trials assessing Chuna manual therapy for the treatment of childhood anorexia were included. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. The quality of evidence for each main outcome was evaluated using the grading of recommendations assessment, development, and evaluation approach. A meta-analysis was performed, and the pooled data were presented as risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for dichotomous outcomes.ResultsTwenty-five RCTs involving 2230 participants were included. The meta-analysis showed that Chuna manual therapy had a higher total effective rate (TER) based on anorexia symptoms than that of lysine inositol and vitamin B12 (RR: 1.53, 95% CI: 1.28-1.84), multi-enzyme and multi-vitamin (RR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.11-1.33), and zinc calcium gluconate (RR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.06-1.39). There was no significant difference in total effective rate between Chuna manual therapy and zinc gluconate plus lysine. No adverse events associated with Chuna manual therapy were reported. Overall, the included studies had an unclear risk of bias, and the quality of evidence was generally moderate to low.ConclusionCurrent evidence showed that Chuna manual therapy may be effective and safe for improving anorexia symptoms, especially compared with lysine inositol and vitamin B12, multi-enzyme plus multi-vitamin, and zinc calcium gluconate. However, owing to the low methodological quality of the included studies, more rigorous, high-quality RCTs are required on this topic.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

20 keywords...

hide…