Zhang YM, Li RG, Zhang XH, Wang ZY, Xu HH, Li XF, Zhang ZW. Needle knife therapy for cervical spondylotic radiculopathy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. World J Methodol 2026; 16(2): 117496 [DOI: 10.5662/wjm.v16.i2.117496]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Rui-Guo Li, Affiliate Associate Professor, Chief Physician, Director, Lecturer, Professor, Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, No. 1 Dongming Road, Zhengzhou 450000, Henan Province, China. 3060272382@qq.com
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Article-Type of This Article
Meta-Analysis
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Jun 20, 2026 (publication date) through Apr 23, 2026
Times Cited of This Article
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Journal Information of This Article
Publication Name
World Journal of Methodology
ISSN
2222-0682
Publisher of This Article
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
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Zhang YM, Li RG, Zhang XH, Wang ZY, Xu HH, Li XF, Zhang ZW. Needle knife therapy for cervical spondylotic radiculopathy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. World J Methodol 2026; 16(2): 117496 [DOI: 10.5662/wjm.v16.i2.117496]
Yi-Ming Zhang, Rui-Guo Li, Xiao-Hong Zhang, Zhan-You Wang, College of Acupuncture and Massage, Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China
Rui-Guo Li, Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou 450000, Henan Province, China
Huan-Huan Xu, Xiao-Fan Li, Zi-Wei Zhang, Department of Acupuncture, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Rui-Guo Li and Zhan-You Wang.
Author contributions: Zhang YM and Li RG participated in the design of this study and conducted the literature search and data extraction; Zhang XH and Wang ZY drafted the manuscript; Xu HH, Li XF, and Zhang ZW critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; Li RG and Wang ZY contributed equally to this article, they are the co-corresponding authors of this manuscript; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Henan Province Chinese Medicine Research Project, No. 2024ZY2095.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Corresponding author: Rui-Guo Li, Affiliate Associate Professor, Chief Physician, Director, Lecturer, Professor, Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, No. 1 Dongming Road, Zhengzhou 450000, Henan Province, China. 3060272382@qq.com
Received: December 9, 2025 Revised: January 2, 2026 Accepted: February 25, 2026 Published online: June 20, 2026 Processing time: 136 Days and 1.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study aims to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of needle-knife therapy for cervical spondylotic radiculopathy through a meta-analysis of 15 randomized controlled trials encompassing 1184 patients. The research addresses three core issues: comparative effectiveness versus conventional treatments (acupuncture, massage, warm acupuncture), comprehensive clinical outcome assessment (effective rates, Visual Analog Scale scores, Neck Disability Index scores, and Yasushi Tanaka cervical spondylitis symptom scale 20 scores), and methodological quality evaluation using Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results demonstrate superior effective rates and improved symptom scores. Findings provide preliminary support for needle-knife therapy while emphasizing the need for larger, high-quality randomized controlled trials to validate these results.
