The efficacy and safety of filiform-fire needle for peripheral facial paralysis A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Review question / Objective: The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has indicated the potential efficacy of filiform-fire needle as therapy for the treatment of PFP, while medical evidence is still lacked to date.Hence, this study aims to systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of filiform-fire needle in the treatment of PFP, as well as summarize the relevant studies and literature with RCTs, for providing certain reference for clinical trials.Information sources: PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE and Web of Science, National Knowledge Infrastructure of China, VIP.Wanfang and China Biomedicine searched for literature on randomized controlled clinical trials using ACE for PFP.Only studies published between now and January 2021 are included.Pertinent literature is collected on four international electronic databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of Science) and four Chinese electronic databases (CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, SinoMed).For purpose of avoiding missing any ongoing clinical trials, 2 following trial registries will be searched to identify relevant studies: Chinese Clinical Trials Registry (www.chictr.org.cn/i n d e x .a s p x ) , o n g o i n g T r i a l s R e g i s t r y o f N I H (www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspx).clinicaltrials.gov),World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (www.who.int/trialsearch),where the studies are required to be published in English or Chinese.