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Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common problem worldwide. It has a major impact on physical and social activities and interpersonal relationships. UI is common in women, but is under-reported and under-treated. It affects the quality of life of female patients severely. Acupuncture and moxibustion have been proposed as potentially effective interventions for female UI. Hence, for the benefit of acupuncture practitioners around the world, the World Federation of Acupuncture-moxibustion Societies initiated a project to develop a clinical practice guideline (CPG) for the use of acupuncture and moxibustion to treat female UI. This CPG was developed according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, referring to the principles of the World Health Organization Handbook for Guideline Development. During the development of the CPG, the guideline development group (GDG) played an important role. The clinical questions, recommendations and therapeutic protocols were all formulated by GDG using the modified Delphi method. This CPG contains ten recommendations about the use of acupuncture and moxibustion interventions for ten clinical questions, which include nine conditional recommendations for the intervention and one conditional recommendation for either the intervention or the comparison. This CPG also provides one protocol for conventional filiform needle therapy, two therapy protocols for deep needling stimulation on lumbosacral acupoints, and four moxibustion therapy protocols, based on the protocols presented in randomized controlled trials reviewed by the GDG.

Acupuncture is one of the most effective complementary therapies for allergic rhinitis (AR) and has been recommended by several clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for AR. However, these CPGs mentioned acupuncture without making recommendations for clinical implementation and therapeutic protocols, therefore limiting the applicability of acupuncture therapies for AR. Hence, for the benefit of acupuncture practitioners around the world, the World Federation of Acupuncture-moxibustion Societies have initiated a project to develop the CPG for the use of acupuncture and moxibustion to treat AR. This CPG was developed according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, referring to the principles of the World Health Organization Handbook for Guideline Development. During the development of the CPG, the guideline development group (GDG) played an important role. The clinical questions, recommendations and therapeutic protocols were all formulated by the GDG using the modified Delphi method. The CPG contains recommendations for 15 clinical questions about the use of acupuncture and moxibustion interventions. These include one strong recommendation for the intervention based on high-quality evidence, three conditional recommendations for either the intervention or standard care, and 11 conditional recommendations for the intervention based on very low quality of evidence. The CPG also provides one filiform needle acupuncture protocol and five moxibustion protocols extracted based on the protocols presented in randomized controlled trials reviewed by the GDG.

Filiform needle acupuncture (FNA), the most classical and widely applied acupuncture method based on traditional Chinese medicine theory, has shown a promising effect in the treatment of allergic rhinitis (AR).

The formulation of recommendations is a crucial step in the development of clinical practice guidelines, which requires tools provided by the GRADE methodology. These tools include the evidence quality assessment tool, the evidence summary tool, and the evidence-to-decision (EtD) framework. Although there is a methodologically guided standard pathway for formulating recommendations in clinical practice guidelines, it remains unclear how to translate this theoretical pathway into the practical process for formulating recommendations and what the specific steps in this process entail. Therefore, this paper takes the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies Clinical Practice Guidelines on Acupuncture: Allergic Rhinitisas an example to detail the full process of formulating recommendations and summaries it into a three-step method. Step one: Collect original materials from different sources to create EtD table. Step two: Distribute and collect EtD table, and preliminarily gather the recommendation voting results. Step three: Organize “salami-slicing pattern” guideline development group consensus meeting to formulate recommendations. The three-step method for formulating recommendations in clinical practice guidelines fully utilizes the GRADE EtD table to provide guideline development group with decision-making foundation and reference from multiple dimensions, including the importance of clinical questions, balance of benefits and harms, quality of evidence, resource required, values and preferences, health equity, acceptability, and feasibility. This approach enhances the scientific and practical nature of guideline recommendations. This paper provides a standard operating procedure to formulate recommendations for the incoming clinical practice guidelines, which aims to establish a standard pathway for the formulation of acupuncture clinical practice guideline recommendations.

Clinical Practice Guideline on Acupuncture and Moxibustion: Allergic Rhinitiswas revised and released by the Standards Working Committee of World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) on October 9, 2023. This is the first clinical practice guideline (CPG) on acupuncture and moxibustion for allergic rhinitis approved by an international academic organization, which provides evidence-based recommendations and the practical therapeutic protocols for acupuncture practitioners globally. This CPG was developed by following Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, and the principles of the World Health Organization Handbook for Guideline Development. The members in the guideline development group (GDG) were from different countries, with different professions, and they played a critical role in the development of clinical questions, recommendations, and therapeutic protocols. Recommendations are the core of a CPG and the direct answers to clinical questions, due to which this article focuses on the recommendations of this CPG. The recommendations were developed by using the modified Delphi method and the GRADE grid rules, based on the updated systematic reviews of clinical evidence. A total of 15 recommendations for 15 clinical questions were developed in this CPG, including one strong recommendation for intervention based on high-quality evidence, three conditional recommendations for either the intervention or the comparison based on very low quality of evidence, and 11 conditional recommendations for the intervention based on very low quality of evidence.

Clinical Practice Guideline on Acupuncture and Moxibustion: Migraine (WFAS 007.9-2023)is a clinical practice guideline officially released by the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) on October 9, 2023, and is the first international guideline on the treatment of migraine with acupuncture. This international standard was developed under the guidance of rigorous evidence-based methodology, and it contains guideline purpose, scope, applicable population, applicable settings, overview of acupuncture for migraine, guideline development process and recommendations. For promoting the understanding and application of this guideline, this article summarizes a total of 18 recommendations in order to assist clinical decisions for migraine with acupuncture.

Urinary incontinence (UI) is common in women and affects the quality of life in female patients severely. But the clinical consideration and treatment are insufficient. Acupuncture and-moxibustion has been proposed as a potentially effective intervention for female UI. Hence, the World Federation of Acupuncture-moxibustion Societies (WFAS) have initiated a project to develop the clinical practice guideline (CPG) on acupuncture and moxibustion for female UI towards global acupuncture practitioners. The CPG was developed according to the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, referring to the principles of the World Health Organization Handbook for Guideline Development. During the development of the CPG, the guideline development group (GDG) played an important role, which is composed of multi-national and multi-disciplinary experts. The clinical questions, recommendations and therapeutic protocols were all formulated by GDG using the modified Delphi method and basing on the results of the latest systematic review. This article focuses on the recommendations in the CPG. The CPG contains ten recommendations for ten clinical questions, including nine conditional recommendations for the intervention, one conditional recommendations for either the intervention or the comparison. The CPG also provides one conventional filiform needle therapy protocol, two deep puncturing stimulation on lumbosacral acupoints therapy (DPSLAT) protocols, and four moxibustion therapy protocols, extracted from the included clinical evidence of this CPG.

The survey aims to collect clinical questions for the clinical practice guideline on acupuncture and moxibustion in treating urinary incontinence in women. The survey is consisted of multiple-choice questions, ranking questions and open questions. We hope you can help us to complete the questions using PICO (Patients, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome) framework referring to the examples. The survey might take about 30 min, and the responses from you will greatly contribute to the formation of this guideline.

The survey aims to collect clinical questions for the clinical practice guideline on acupuncture and moxibustion in treating allergic rhinitis. The survey is consisted of multiple-choice questions, ranking questions, and open questions. Readers are recommended to complete the open questions using PICO (Patients, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome) framework, referring to the examples. The survey might take about 30 min, and the responses from readers will greatly contribute to the formation of this guideline.

Professor Jiping ZHAO has unique thoughts on the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral facial paralysis. She pays the great attention to clinical differentiation in treatment with acupuncture, especially meridian differentiation. She believes that the differentiation of lesion is core and the early judgment is critical for the better therapeutic effects on intractable facial paralysis. The local acupoints are selected in the guide of the theory of meridian sinew and stimulated on the base of three-needling theory. The distal acupoints are decided in light of the syndrome differentiation, of which, Hégŭ (合谷 LI 4), Zúsānlĭ (足三里 ST 36) and Tàichōng (太冲 LR 3) are the basic acupoints. Additionally, Professor ZHAO lays the emphasis on the 5th branch of facial nerve (cervical branch) in diagnosis and treatment.

To explore the tenderness response at the acupoints on the medial crus in the patients of pelvic inflammatory disease.

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is defined as an immunoglobulin led atopic disorder that affects the nasal mucosa. Moxibustion on herbs, a common complementary and alternative medicine approach, is frequently used for treating AR in clinical practice. Western medicine is good at quick symptomatic relief, while offer little or no sustainable and steady long-term effect. Little established evidence is available to support the long-term effectiveness of moxibustion on herbs for AR.

Since acupuncture came to western countries, research has been done to try and prove whether or not it is effective. Current Acupuncture research is most often based on the sham needle which was first designed by K Streitberger and J Kleinhenz in 1998. The sham acupuncture needles are developed for the control group and do not penetrate the skin. Sham acupuncture has been used in randomized controlled trial (RCT) for diseases which normally benefit from acupuncture treatment. The sham needle is not the best placebo needle though. Because of the use of sham acupuncture, the result of those research shows acupuncture having no effect or it shows there is no significant difference between real acupuncture (verum) and sham acupuncture (placebo). However, a detailed introduction of the Nine Classical Needles (ancient) and the Nine Modern Needles (SHI's nine needles) shows that the use of sham acupuncture in RCT research is flawed by design. This then casts doubt on the findings and conclusions reached by using sham acupuncture in RCT acupuncture research.

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common condition that bothers women's lives, including stress urinary incontinence (SUI), urgency urinary incontinence (UUI) and mixed urinary incontinence (MUI). The current non-surgical treatment of Western medicine includes pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT), medication, electric stimulation, etc., all of which have varied limitations. For instance, the patients are poor in compliance with PFMT and medication results in frequent adverse effects. Being one of the featured treatments of TCM, moxibustion has several merits including safety, low cost and simple operation. In recent years, the clinical evidences prove increasingly that moxibustion may be effective for women with UI. However, there is no high-quality systematic review of moxibustion for this disease.

Formulating critical clinical questions and outcomes is essential for developing clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). This study aims to formulate the key clinical questions and outcomes for the CPG on acupuncture and moxibustion for allergic rhinitis (AR).

To observe clinical effects of acupuncture combined with blood-letting by a three-edged needle for treating Bell's palsy of wind-heat syndrome at the acute stage.

Prior to this report, heat treatment (32.5°C, 24 h) was the method used to induce embryogenesis fromBrassica napus microspores. Continuous culture at 25°C results in pollen development. This study shows that colchicine alone, at the non-inductive temperature of 25°C, can induce embryogenesis, thus demonstrating that heat shock is not required for embryogenic induction inB. napus cv. Topas. Embryogenic frequencies of over 15% were obtained by culturing isolated microspores with 25 µM colchicine for 42 h at 25°C. The microspore developmental stages responsive to colchicine were unicellular vacuolate and late unicellular, somewhat earlier stages than the population responsive to heat induction. Other groups have reported that heat-shock proteins are essential to the induction of embryogenesis. The present study offers a method of embryogenic induction without the use of heat which will allow discrimination between the factors associated with response to heat shock and those involved with changing cell development.