Evaluation of efficiency and safety of muscular region's acupuncture treatments for knee osteoarthritis: A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis.

Background As a chronic degenerative disease, knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is mainly characterized by loose ligaments around the knee joint, degeneration of cartilage in the knee joint, and atrophy of surrounding muscles. According to related investigations, the incidence of knee osteoarthritis in China is 8.1%, of which 10.3% are women and 5.7% are men. Therefore, in order to improve the therapeutic effect of KOA, we must constantly explore new ways to treat the disease. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture with needle knife, blade needle, long-round needle, fire needle, micro-needle knife with conventional acupuncture intervention in KOA. Methods Computer search of PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, Wangfang, and VIP database, search for randomized controlled trials of muscular region's acupuncture therapy on KOA, the search time limit is to build the database until July 9, 2021. To ensure the comprehensiveness of the search, relevant references and conference literature are also included. After 2 researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias in the included studies, the Stata 14.0 software was used for data analysis. Results The effectiveness and safety of muscular region's acupuncture in the treatment of patients with KOA will be systematically evaluated. Conclusion The results of this study will provide strong evidence to determine whether muscular region's acupuncture is effective in the treatment of KOA. Registration number INPLASY202170031 (https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2021-7-0031/).