Objective To evaluate the clinical effect of acupuncture combined with Chinese medicine in the treatment of oligozoospermia/asthenozoospermia. Methods Randomized controlled trials(RCTs) of acupuncture combined with traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) in the treatment of oligozoospermia/asthenozoospermia published up to February 15

2019 were searched from databases of CNKI

CBM

Wanfang Data

VIP

PubMed

Embase

and The Cochrane Library. Two reviewers independently performed quality assessment and data extraction of the studies

and RevMan5.3 was used to perform the meta-analysis. Results A total of 13 articles with 12 RCTs were included

with a total of 1 183 patients. The meta-analysis showed that acupuncture combined with TCM achieved a significantly higher pregnancy rate than TCM alone in the treatment of oligozoospermia/asthenozoospermia(risk ratio [RR] =1.46

95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.13-1.90

P=0.004). The patients treated with acupuncture combined with TCM had a significantly higher effective rate than those treated with TCM alone(RR=1.17

95% CI:1.10-1.24

P<0.000 01). Compared with TCM alone

acupuncture combined with TCM achieved significantly better improvements in sperm survival rate(mean difference [MD]=8.28

95% CI: 6.48-10.08

P<0.000 01)

sperm motility(MD=17.01

95%CI:11.06-22.96

P<0.000 01)

sperm concentration(MD=8.71

95%CI:5.92-11.50

P<0.000 01)

and number of grade A sperms(MD=6.39

95%CI:5.27-7.50

P<0.000 01). Conclusion Acupuncture combined with TCM has a better clinical effect than TCM alone in the treatment of oligozoospermia/asthenozoospermia. Due to the low methodological quality of the studies included in this analysis

acupuncture combined with TCM in the treatment of oligozoospermia/asthenozoospermia should be used based on patients' conditions in clinical practice.