Massage for migraine: A meta-analysis

Objective: This systematic review examined whether massage interventions provided any measurable benefit in migraine disorders. Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were searched for in Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database (CNKI), and WanFang Data from inception to October 2015. Two researchers independently selected literatures according to the inclusion criteria, and used the risk of bias assessment tool in Reviewer Handbook 5.1.0 for quality evaluation. Meta-analyses were performed with RevMan 5.3 software. GRAED pro GDT was used to evaluate the quality of evidence. Results: In summary, 18 RCTs with 2025 patients and 1947 cases were included in meta-analyses. Analysis results showed that 1) compared with conventional drug therapies, massage therapies significantly improved the effective rate with statistically significant difference (RR=1.25, 95%CI (1.19, 1.32), P 0.00001); 2) the difference between massage and acupuncture was not statistically significant (RR=0.94, 95%CI (0.77, 1.16), P 0.05). In addition, compared with acupuncture only, a combined approach of massage and acupuncture significantly improved the effective rate with statistically significant difference (RR=1.11, 95%CI (1.06, 1.17), P 0.0001). Conclusion: As comparable to acupuncture, massage is an effective therapy for migraine, both massage and acupuncture show clear benefits over conventional drug therapies.