Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Apr 28, 2022; 10(2): 63-73
Published online Apr 28, 2022. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v10.i2.63
Effect of auricular plaster for primary hypertension in older people: A meta-analysis
Yong Qin, Yu Lou, Xiao-Yan Shen, Yun Gai
Yong Qin, Yu Lou, Xiao-Yan Shen, Yun Gai, Department of Cardiology, The Seventh People's Hospital of Shanghai University of TCM, Shanghai 200137, China
Yun Gai, Department of General Medicine, The Seventh People's Hospital of Shanghai University of TCM, Shanghai 200137, China
Author contributions: Qin Y, Lou Y, and Gai Y participated in the conception and design of the study, library searches and assembling relevant literature, critical review of the paper, supervising the writing of the paper and database management; Qin Y, Shen XY, and Gai Y participated in data collection, library searches assembling relevant literature, writing the paper and critical review.
Supported by Leading talent training of Pudong New Area Health Committee, No. PWR12020-02; Exploration on the discipline construction mode of treating and preventing diseases based on specific diseases, No. PWZY-2019-0402; Shanghai collaborative innovation center of traditional Chinese medicine health services.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: This study was conducted as per PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yun Gai, Chief Physician, Department of General Medicine, The Seventh People's Hospital of Shanghai University of TCM, No. 358 Gaoqiao Datong Road, Shanghai 200137, China. gaiyunlucky@163.com
Received: December 4, 2021
Peer-review started: December 4, 2021
First decision: December 27, 2021
Revised: January 25, 2022
Accepted: April 24, 2022
Article in press: April 24, 2022
Published online: April 28, 2022
Processing time: 145 Days and 5.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Hypertension is a critical public health problem globally. Antihypertensive drugs can create an extra burden on hypertension patients' self-regulation leading to an imbalance of blood supply and demand. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of auricular plaster therapy combined with western medicine to treat primary hypertension in older people.

AIM

To carry out a systematic review and meta-analysis for the effect of auricular plaster in elderly hypertension patients.

METHODS

Multiple databases like PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Literature on Disc, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang and Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database were used to search for the relevant studies and full-text articles involved in the evaluation of auricular plaster combined with western medicine and western medicine alone for primary hypertension in older people. All included articles were quality assessed and the data analysis was conducted with the Review Manager (5.4). Forest plots, sensitivity analysis and funnel plots were also performed on the included articles.

RESULTS

In this analysis, fourteen (14) relevant studies were included. The Meta-analysis showed a significant difference in the effective ratio (OR = 3.62; 95%CI, 2.46 to 5.33; P < 0.00001), diastolic blood pressure change (5.68 mmHg; 95%CI, 3.49 to 7.87; P < 0.00001), systolic blood pressure change (MD = 8.78 mmHg; 95%CI, 5.04 to 12.53; P < 0.00001) and symptom score (MD = 3.20; 95%CI, 1.23 to 5.18; P = 0.001) between auricular plaster combined with western medicine group and western medicine alone group. One bias was detected as selection bias and another two in reporting bias. Sensitivity analysis fulfilled the stability of the results.

CONCLUSION

Our study suggested that auricular plaster combined with western medicine improved primary hypertension better than western medicine alone. Limited by the quality of included studies, further studies should be performed to confirm our findings.

Keywords: Primary hypertension; Older people; Auricular plaster; Meta-analysis

Core Tip: Our study is different from a previous report's systematic review and meta-analysis. We focused on elderly hypertension patients and acquired relevant literature on auricular plaster in the analysis.