Objective: This study was aimed to determine whether acupuncture provides therapeutic benefits to woman with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) during their in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) treatment cycles.Method: Embase, The Cochrane Library, Web of science, PubMed, WanFang database, VIP database, CBM database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI database) were investigated from the inception until April 1, 2024.We screened randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using acupuncture undergoing IVF-ET, the population was patients with PCOS.Results:There is a total of 1,203 patients from thirteen RCTs were incorporated in this analysis.Results showed that the acupuncture therapy increased the clinical pregnancy rate (P<0.01),high quality embryo rate (P<0.01) and the Live birth rate (P<0.01).The result also indicated that the dose of gonadotrophin (Gn) used (P=0.0002)and days of Gn used (P=0.005)were significantly differed between the acupuncture and the control group.Patients who underwent acupuncture treatment exhibited a markedly reduced occurrence of OHSS relative to the control group patients (P<0.01).No statistically significant difference was observed for the fertilization rate, the number of oocytes retrieved, the thickness of endometrium, the level of progesterone (P), the level of luteinizing hormone (LH), the level of Estrogen (E2), miscarriage rate and the cycle cancellation rate.Conclusion: Our result showed that acupuncture therapy could increase the high-quality embryo rate, live birth rate and also the clinical pregnancy rate in PCOS patients undergoing IVF.Acupuncture could reduce the dose and duration of Gn.It also decreased the incidence of OHSS.Based on the result of this meta-analysis, acupuncture therapy is suggested in the IVF process for PCOS patients.
Yi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.