Journal of traditional Chinese medicine = Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan
Efficacy and safety of moxibustion therapy for bronchial asthma: a systematic review and network Meta-analysis
By Haizhen Z, Baohao C, Hanlin Z and 3 others.
Abstract
Objective
To evaluate the efficacy and safety of different moxibustion therapies for treating asthma.
Methods
Five databases were searched up to July 27, 2025, to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing moxibustion for bronchial asthma. Outcomes included response rates, pulmonary function, and immune biomarkers. Paired and network meta-analyses were conducted using Stata 18 and R Studio, with risk of bias assessed via the Cochrane RoB 2 tool.
Results
We included 44 RCTs involving 3401 participants. Findings indicated that heat-sensitive moxibustion significantly outperformed conventional treatment in improving long-term outcomes: standardised mean difference for improvement in forced expiratory volume in one second was 0.45 (95% confidence interval 0.03 to 0.87); mean difference for improvement in Asthma Control Test (ACT) score was 0.81 (95% confidence interval 0.20 to 1.42). Moxibustion combined with conventional therapy demonstrated overall superiority over conventional therapy alone in enhancing response rates, lung function, ACT, and modulating immune markers. Accumulated rank curve under the surface ranking indicated: indirect moxibustion was optimal for improving total response rates; conventional therapy combined with traditional suspending moxibustion was optimal for reducing interleukin-6 (IL-6); conventional therapy combined with heat-sensitive moxibustion was optimal for improving lung function, ACT, immunoglobulin E, and CD4+/CD8+ ratios. All moxibustion-related adverse events were mild.