Acupotomy by ultrasound-guided versus anatomical guidance in knee osteoarthritis: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background:At present, there is no systematic evaluation on whether ultrasonic-guided acupotomy is more effective compared with anatomical guidance in knee osteoarthritis. We conducted a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis to provide a method for evaluating the effectiveness and safety of acupotomy by ultrasound-guided technique. Methods:An all-round retrieval will be performed in the following electronic journal databases from their inception to October 2022, which comprise PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang data, Chinese Scientific Journals Database, and China biomedical literature database. The following key words were used on combination with Boolean operators AND or OR: "acupotomy," "ultrasound," "knee osteoarthritis." Two authors completed the quality assessment using the Cochrane Collaborations risk of bias tool. The meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager 5.3 software from the Cochrane Collaboration (London, UK). Results:The findings of this study will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication. Conclusion:This systematic review will provide evidence to judge whether acupotomy by ultrasound-guided technique is effective and safe for knee osteoarthritis.