Efficacy of cupping therapy on pain outcomes: an evidence-mapping study

Liaoyao Wang; Ziling Cai; Xuanlin Li; Aisong Zhu

doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1266712

Efficacy of cupping therapy on pain outcomes: an evidence-mapping study

Front Neurol. 2023 Oct 26:14:1266712. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1266712. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Liaoyao Wang¹, Ziling Cai¹, Xuanlin Li¹, Aisong Zhu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Basic Medical Sciences, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China.
² Key Laboratory of Blood-Stasis-Toxin Syndrome of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China.
³ Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for "Preventive Treatment" Smart Health of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

Objective: Cupping therapy is an ancient technique of healing used to treat a variety of ailments. An evidence-mapping study was conducted to summarize the existing evidence of cupping therapy for pain-related outcomes and indicate the effect and the quality of evidence to provide a comprehensive view of what is known.

Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science were searched to collect the meta-analyses investigating the association between cupping therapy and pain-related outcomes. The methodological quality was assessed by using the AMSTAR 2 tool. Significant outcomes (p < 0.05) were assessed using the GRADE system. The summary of evidence is presented by bubble plots and human evidence mapping.

Results: Fourteen meta-analyses covering five distinct pain-related conditions were identified and assessed for methodological quality using the AMSTAR 2, which categorized the quality as critically low (36%), low (50.0%), moderate (7%), and high (7%). In accordance with the GRADE system, no high-quality evidence was found that demonstrates the efficacy of cupping therapy for pain-related outcomes. Specifically, for neck pain, there were two moderate-quality, four low-quality, and two very low-quality evidence, while only one very low-quality evidence supports its efficacy in treating herpes zoster and one low-quality evidence for chronic back pain. Additionally, for low back pain, there were two moderate-quality, one low-quality, and four very low-quality evidence, and for knee osteoarthritis, three moderate-quality evidence suggest that cupping therapy may alleviate pain score.

Conclusion: The available evidence of very low-to-moderate quality suggests that cupping therapy is effective in managing chronic pain, knee osteoarthritis, low back pain, neck pain, chronic back pain, and herpes zoster. Moreover, it represents a promising, safe, and effective non-pharmacological therapy that warrants wider application and promotion.Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021255879, identifier: CRD42021255879.

Keywords: cupping therapy; evidence mapping; meta-analysis; pain-related conditions; systematic review.

Publication types

Systematic Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The study was funded by the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China Key Special Program for “Modernization Research of Traditional Chinese Medicine” (grant number 2019YFC1708701) and Zhejiang Chinese Medical University’s 2022 School-level Scientific Research Project Talent Project (grant number 2022RCZXZK19).