Acupuncture for Women with Overactive Bladder: Perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Related Mechanism

Abstract

Purpose Overactive bladder (OAB) syndrome is one of the most common diseases in urology and affects quality of life. Although the current treatment for OAB is based on oral medications, there are limitations and many patients have difficulty accepting drug-induced adverse effects. This review aimed to analyze the efficacy of acupuncture and its related mechanisms and provide a preliminary therapeutic regimen. Methods Two authors independently searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library up to April 2022. They searched related English literature and extracted the data under a standard form based on the search strategy. Clinical trials which included OAB women with the treatment of acupuncture were included. Common acupuncture alone without other pharmacotherapy, external treatments was in the treatment group. The control interventions may include any active treatments, sham placebo, or no establishment of a control group. Outcomes included 3-day or 24-hour voiding diary, overactive bladder symptom score, etc. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was also used to assess the methodological quality of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Results We analyzed five RCTs and one comparative study on acupuncture for OAB to review and discuss the acupoint location, treatment course, and retention time based on clinical evidence and treatment ideas in traditional Chinese medicine. Additionally, we used the available evidence to reveal and discuss the acupuncture mechanisms for OAB. Acupuncture may regulate bladder function by inhibiting C-fibers, modulating nerve growth factors and reducing spontaneous contractions of the detrusor muscle. Conclusion Combined with the available evidence, the combination of local acupoints and distal acupoints should be necessary to consider, especially the lumbosacral acupoints, the small abdomen acupoints and the lower limb acupoints. Among them, acupuncture at SP4, CV4 and KI3 are strongly recommended. The treatment course of acupuncture should be no less than 4 weeks and maintain the frequency of acupuncture no less than once a week. The duration of each session should be no less than 20 minutes. In addition, investigations remain necessary to verify acupuncture’s efficacy and precise mechanism for OAB treatment in further exploration.

Efficacy of Scalp Acupuncture with the Long-Stay Method on Motor Dysfunction in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…We applied Zhu’s scalp acupuncture with long acupuncture retention to treat patients and explore its preliminary efficacy and safety. It is well known that acupuncture has immediate, cumulative, and follow-up effects, 25 , 26 and many studies have set the follow-up period for AIS treatment at 3 or 6 months to observe the follow-up effects, 27 , 28 which is consistent with the purpose of our study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first clinical study in which the long-stay acupuncture method was used to treat motor dysfunction in patients with AIS.…”

The Role of Acupuncture and Its Related Mechanism in Treating Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome

“…Acupuncture is also a non-oral drug therapy, which is a critical component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). And it has been extensively used to treat various pain-related and urological diseases, 15 , 16 with the majority of studies focusing on CP/CPPS. 17 Unlike other systematic reviews, 18–20 we reviewed previous clinical evidence to analyze factors, such as acupoint selection, needle retention time, and duration of acupuncture therapy, and discussed the characteristics and mechanisms of acupuncture therapy to provide a reference for future treatment of CP/CPPS using acupuncture.…”