Objective To analyze the effectiveness of acupoint application therapy for infantile diarrhea so as to provide an objective evidence for clinical decision making.Methods The authors of the present paper did a literature retrieval using The China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI) database

Chinese bio-medical database and Wanfang database covering the period of January 1

1990-June 30

2012

and made a systemic evaluation on the retrieved randomized controlled clinical trials(RCTs) of acupoint application therapy for infantile diarrhea using Cochrane system evaluation method.Following excluding the repetitive

irrelevant and non-randomized controlled trials

those meeting the standards of randomized controlled trials were collec-ted.Trial quality was assessed using the Jadad score which evaluates the randomization process

blinding

and the description of withdrawals or dropouts.The RevMan 5.1 software was used to make statistical analysis.Results A total of 16 papers(2 151 patients) were included in the Meta analysis.The homogeneity test was better(χ2=8.09

P=0.92

I2=0%)

displaying a homogenicity of most studies.Meta analysis showed the merger effect quantity odds ratio(OR)=4.68

and 95% confidence intervals(CIs):3.41

6.42

and the merger effect value test Z=9.58

P<0.00001.Statistical difference indicates a better therapeutic effect of acupoint application group than the control group

providing evidence in favor of acupoint application therapy for infantile diarrhea.Funnel chart displays that the researched object distribution is symmetric

being smaller in the bias.But the potential publication bias still possibly exists.Conclusion Acupoint application therapy for infantile diarrhea has some advantages

which needs further confirmation due to lower quality of the collected literatures.Larger sample

high quality and randomized controlled clinical trials are highly recommended.