Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy combined with acupuncture for lumbar disc herniation: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is a common orthopedic disease, which is one of the main causes of global chronic pain and motor function defect. For intractable LDH, the surgical treatment of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy (PTED) is often used in clinical practice. Although the operation is relatively mature, there may still be some limitations and surgical risks delaying the recovery process of patients. Some studies have found that the combination of acupuncture therapy and PTED can bring more benefits to patients, but these conclusions are still lack of evidence support. Therefore, this study will adopt the method of meta-analysis to estimate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture combined with PTED in patients with LDH, in order to provide a basis for clinical decision-making. Methods: This study will conduct a systematic search of the following databases: the Chinese databases China National Knowledge Infrastructure, formerly Chinese Biomedical Database, Wanfang Data, Chongqing VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, the PubMed, Medline, Embase, Web of Science and The Cochrane library, from their inception to December 1, 2022. In addition, we will search their references to avoid missing other eligible studies. The language will be limited to English and Chinese. RevMan 5.4 will be used to perform the meta-analysis. And GRADE Profiler software will be used to rate the quality of evidence. Results: The results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Conclusion: This study can provide evidence support for acupuncture combined with PTED in the treatment of LDH.