[A systematic evaluation of randomized controlled trials for acupuncture and moxibustion treatment of insomnia]

To assess the therapeutic effect of acupuncture on insomnia.A systematic evaluation of all relevant randomized controlled trials (RCT) about acupuncture and moxibustion treatment of insomnia was carried out. The data were statistically analyzed with a special software RevMan 4.1.Six papers of RCT including 585 patients met the enrolled criteria. All of the trials were of lower in methodological quality without using blind method; Meta-analysis indicated that odds ratio was 3.55, 95% confidence interval [2.50, 5.05], P0.0001, as acupuncture group compared with drug group.Acupuncture is possibly effective for insomnia. However, because of lower methodological quality of all the trials, this conclusion has no enough evidence.