Acupuncture and Related Therapies for Treatment of Postoperative Ileus in Colorectal Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Table 6

Acupuncture therapy versus postoperative care for other measures of gastrointestinal recovery.

Outcome	Treatment type, cancer, participants (number)	Acupuncture therapy	Effect Size MD^1 [95 CI]	Study ID No.†
			I^2
Time to first liquid intake (hours)	Radical surgery, CRC (76)	Manual acup. plus ear acupressure^2	-18.90 [-21.20, -16.60]	10
	Radical surgery^1, CRC (78)	Ear acupressure	-19.76 [-20.27, -19.25]	5
Pooled result (hours)	2 RCTs (154)	Manual acup., ear acupressure	-19.72 [-20.22, -19.22] 0%	5, 10
Time to first semifluid food intake (hours)	Radical surgery, colon cancer, elderly patients (60)	Manual plus electro-acup.	-4.00 [-37.46, 29.46]	15
Time to resume normal diet (days)	Laparoscopic surgery, CRC (110)	Electro-acup.	-0.80 [-1.40, -0.20]	7

means statistically significant; † see Table 1; 1: excluding Miles surgery; 2: on sensitive ear points.
CI: confidence interval; MD: mean difference.