A systematic review and meta-analysis of floating needle in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea

To evaluate the clinical effect of floating needle on primary dysmenorrhea. Wanfang database, Chinese Journal Full-text database, VIP database, PubMed, Embase, OVID, and Cochrane library were searched by computer to collect randomized controlled studies on floating acupuncture in the treatment of primary dysmorrhea published during the period from establishment to November 2023. Two researchers independently screened the literature, conducted multilevel screening, quality evaluation, extracted relevant data, and used Revman5.3 software and stata 17.0 software to conduct meta-analysis of the collected literature data. A total of 16 randomized controlled studies were included, with a total of 1278 patients. The results of meta-analysis showed: overall effective rate (relative risk [RR] = 1.20, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.15, 1.26], P < .00001), apparent rate (RR = 1.38, 95% CI [1.28,1.50], P < .00001), visual analog scale (VAS) score after treatment (mean difference [MD] = -1.07, 95%CI [-1.51, -0.63], P < .0001), VAS score after 30 minutes of treatment (MD = -1.94, 95% CI [-2.31, -1.57]), VAS score after 12 hours of treatment (MD = -1.31, 95%CI [-1.93, -0.69], P < .001), symptom score (MD = -2.93, 95% CI [-4.22, -1.65], P < .00001) and cox menstrual symptom scale score (MD = -4.53, 95% CI [-6.51, -2.55], P < .00001) were better than the control group, and the difference was statistically significant. The effect of floating acupuncture on primary dysmenorrhea is remarkable, which can significantly reduce the pain of patients.