Fig 1.
The PRISMA flow diagram of the study selection process.
Fig 2.
Forest plot for acupuncture vs. western medicine on clinical effective rate.
Table 1.
Summary of pooled results on acupuncture vs. control for patients with vocal nodules.
Table 2.
Summary of meta-regression and subgroup-analyses for clinical effective rate (acupuncture vs. western medicine).
Fig 3.
Forest plot for acupuncture vs. Chinese herbal medicine on clinical effective rate.
Fig 4.
Trial sequential analysis and penalized test for acupuncture vs. western medicine on clinical effective rate.
Notes: RIS: Required information size. This picture showed that 1) Z-curve didn’t cross the RIS, indicating that the number of included studies has not reached the amount required for meta-analysis; 2) Z-curve crossed the conventional boundary of benefit (z = 1.96), indicating that the difference of clinical effective rate between acupuncture group versus western medicine group was statistically significant, excluding the possibility of false positive; 3) Z-curve crossed trial sequential monitoring boundary for benefit, which indicated that acupuncture was not superior to western medicine.
Fig 5.
Cluster analyses and heat map of the acupoints applied in the included trials.
KYYH: Kai yin yi hao; LI-4: He gu; EX-B2: Jia ji; ST-36: Zu san li; LU-7: Lie que; KI-6: Zhao hai; SYP: Sang yin point; LI-18: Fu tu; LU-10: Yu ji; ST-9: Ren yin; ST-40: Feng long; ST-10: Shui tu; SP-10: Xue hai.