OBJECTIVE: The effectiveness and safety of single acupuncture on gouty arthritis were systematically evaluated by comparing the effectiveness of Western medicine and single acupuncture on gouty arthritis. METHOD(S): Two reviewers collected and screened the literature, and extracted relevant information, including: course of disease, random method, intervention measures, course of treatment, detection indicators, adverse reactions, etc. Quality assessment, meta-analysis, publication bias and sensitivity analysis were performed. The main outcomes included total effective rate and serum uric acid, while secondary outcomes included pain integral, adverse events and follow-up shedding etc. RESULT(S): 26 RCTs were screened out, with a total of 2048 participants. The results show that the total effective rate of single acupuncture treatment of gouty arthritis is higher than that of the Western medicine group (OR 4.33, 95% CI 3.22 to 5.82), and it had a certain clinical advantage in reducing the level of uric acid (MD -68.39, 95% CI -97.47 to -39.31), the analgesic effect is equivalent to that of Western medicine. There were no adverse reactions were reported in the single acupuncture treatment group. CONCLUSION(S): The results show that single acupuncture is more effective and safer than Western medicine in the treatment of gouty arthritis. However, due to the low quality of the included literature, these results should be interpreted with caution; more scientific clinical RCTs are needed to verify the effect of single acupuncture on gouty arthritis.
With permission from Cognizant Communication Corporation, 3 Hartsdale Rd, Elmsford NY 10523-3701, USA.

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