ReviewIntegrative medicine research2021
Acupuncture and herbal medicine for female infertility: an overview of systematic reviews.
Review in Integrative medicine research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trends in acupuncture for infertility: a scoping review with bibliometric and visual analysis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Pooled it
- Maca (Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Chinese herbal medicine for subfertile women with polycystic ovarian syndrome.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Effect of Acupuncture on Endometrial Blood Flow in Women Undergoing in vitro Fertilization Embryo Transfer: A Single Blind, Randomized Controlled Trial.Chinese journal of integrative medicine · 2024Trial
- Integrating Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine into Assisted Reproductive Technology: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of East Asian Traditional Medicine.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Integrative medicine and perinatal outcomes among women giving birth: A national population-based study in South Korea.Integrative medicine research · 2025Article
- A Survey of Utilization and Satisfaction of Korean Subfertility Treatment among Korean Women.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Biological Importance of Phellodendrine in Traditional and Modern Medicines: An Update on Therapeutic Potential in Medicine.Current drug research reviews · 2024Review
- Ethnomedicinal Importance of Patuletin in Medicine: Pharmacological Activities and Analytical Aspects.Endocrine, metabolic & immune disorders drug targets · 2024Review
- Article
- Development of the Korean Medicine Core Outcome Set for Primary Dysmenorrhea (COS-PD-KM) for Herbal Medicine Treatment of Primary Dysmenorrhea in Primary Clinics.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Characteristics and Outcomes of Herbal Medicine for Female Infertility: A Retrospective Analysis of Data from a Korean Medicine Clinic During 2010-2020.International journal of women's health · 2022Article
- The Treatment of Complementary and Alternative Medicine on Female Infertility Caused by Endometrial Factors.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2022Review
- Autophagy as a Therapeutic Target of Natural Products Enhancing Embryo Implantation.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAcupuncture and herbal medicine have been used as additional treatments for infertility or as an adjuvant treatment of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in infertility. Many systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MA) have been published. This paper reviews the SRs and MA of acupuncture and herbal medicine on infertility to provide evidence for clinical decision making.
methodsA comprehensive literature search of SRs and MA for the effects of acupuncture and herbal medicine on infertility was conducted using nine databases. Two independent reviewers extracted the data of the selected SR and MA and evaluated their methodological quality using the 'Assessment of multiple systematic reviews 2 (AMSTAR2)'.
resultsTwenty-one studies were included in this analysis. Eight studies were published in China, and three studies each were published in the USA, UK, and Australia. Conflicting evidence on the efficacy of acupuncture for infertile women has been reported. Herbal medicine for infertile women undergoing ART, women with anovulation, and women with polycystic ovary syndrome helped improve the clinical pregnancy rate. The methodological quality of SRs and MAs evaluated by AMSTAR 2 was low or very low because the protocol or list of excluded studies were omitted.
conclusionHerbal medicine tended to be effective in infertility, but acupuncture had low evidence of an effect on infertility. The methodological quality of the published SRs and MAs was underestimated because AMSTAR2 is a more rigorous assessment tool than the previous version.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.