Effects of traditional Chinese exercise on lumbar disc herniation: A protocol of network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: A large number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have shown that traditional Chinese exercises (TCE) have certain advantages in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation (LDH). However, due to the diversity of TCE methods, their relative effectiveness has not been studied and explained. Therefore, based on the network meta-analysis (NMA), this study will compare the differences in the effectiveness of TCE methods in the treatment of LDH, in order to provide a reference for clinical treatment.

Methods: We will search PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CHKD-CNKI), WANFANG database (Chinese Medicine Premier), Chinese Biomedical Literature database VIP for relevant RCTs of ACU treatments for POP, from their inceptions to March 18, 2019. STATA 15.0 and GEMTC software will be used to perform a NMA. The evidence will be evaluated by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach and the type 1 error rate will be assessed by trial sequential analysis.

Results: The results of this review will be submitted to a recognized journal for publication.

Conclusion: This proposed systematic review will evaluate the different advantages of various types of TCE in the treatment of LDH.