Effect of Chinese herbal topical medicine, acupuncture, and moxibustion on pressure ulcer wound healing: A meta-analysis

We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of Chinese herbal topical medicine, acupuncture, and moxibustion on pressure ulcer wound healing. A systematic literature search up to January 2022 was done and 13 studies included 1073 subjects with pressure ulcer wound at the start of the study; 593 of them were using traditional Chinese medicine treatments, and 480 were control for pressure ulcer wound. We calculated the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to evaluate the effect of Chinese herbal topical medicine, acupuncture, and moxibustion on pressure ulcer wound healing by the dichotomous methods with a random or fixed-influence model. Traditional Chinese medicine treatments had significantly higher complete healing (OR, 5.94; 95% CI, 3.94-8.95, P < .001), and curative ratio post-treatment (OR, 4.79; 95% CI, 2.62-8.76, P < .001) compared with control for subjects with pressure ulcer wound. Traditional Chinese medicine treatments had a significantly higher complete healing and curative ratio post-treatment compared with control for subjects with pressure ulcer wounds. Further studies are needed to validate these findings.

Automated summary

Traditional Chinese medicine treatments showed significantly better complete healing and curative ratio for subjects with pressure ulcer wounds compared to control. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.