Does acupuncture improve lung function in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease animal model?: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Review question / Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, preventable, and treatable disease characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and progressive airflow obstruction documented on spirometry. Acupuncture, as a safe and economical non-pharmacology therapy, has pronounced therapeutic effects in COPD patients. Several systematic reviews draw the conclusion that acupuncture could improve patients’ quality of life, exercise capacity and dyspnoea, however, the results about lung function were inconclusive. Recently, increasing number of animal studies has been published to illustrate the effects of acupuncture in improving lung function in COPD animal model. However, the efficacy of acupuncture for experimentally induced COPD have not been systematically investigated yet. A systematic review of animal experiments can benefit future experimental designs, promote the conduct and report of basic researches and provide some guidance to translate the achievements of basic researches to clinical application in acupuncture for COPD. Therefore, we will conduct this systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate effects of acupuncture on COPD animal model.