OBJECTIVES: In order to compare and rank the most effective acupuncture therapy for primary dysmenorrhea and provide evidence-based medical support for clinical treatment of this disease. METHODS: A comprehensive search was conducted on China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Database, Information Chinese Journal Service Platform (VIP), China Biomedical Literature Service System (SinoMed), PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases from their inception to May 1, 2023. The Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool was used to evaluate bias risk, and the GeMTC package of Stata 15.1 software and R 4.3.1 software was used to perform network meta-analysis. RESULTS: 70 studies were included, including 5772 patients with primary dysmenorrhea, involving 25 kinds of acupuncture techniques commonly used in clinic. The quality of the included literature was low, most of them did not mention the registration information of clinical trial centers, and the specific sample size estimation method was unclear. Some literature did not explain the specific random method, distribution concealment and blindness, so there was a certain publication bias and small sample effect. Results showed that for improving the clinical effective rate, the top three treatments were salt-separated moxibustion, massotherapy plus acupoint patching, acupuncture plus heat-sensitive moxibustion. In terms of reducing the visual analogue scale (VAS), the top three treatments were massotherapy plus acupoint patching, acupuncture plus acupoint patching and warm acupuncture. In terms of alleviating cox menstrual symptom scale (CMSS), the top three treatments were acupuncture plus acupoint patching, acupoint patching and point embedding. In relieving TCM symptom score, the top three treatments were acupoint patching plus heat-sensitive moxibustion, acupoint patching and moxibustion. CONCLUSION: Different acupuncture therapies have more advantages than oral analgesics in improving the clinical effective rate, reducing VAS score, reducing CMSS score, and alleviating TCM symptom score. Among them, massage therapy plus acupoint patching, acupuncture plus acupoint patching and acupoint patching may be the best solutions for the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea. However, more large-sample, multi-center and high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to demonstrate.

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