On 2014 Aug 19, Qin-hong Zhang commented:

Comment on "Interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups in adults"

Zhang QH, Yue JH

Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, College of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China.

I read with great interest the published article by Moretto et al., entitled “Interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups in adults”[1]. They evaluated the effectiveness of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups of any aetiology in adults. However, I had a few comments to make regarding the same. The authors only included four Chinese trials in acupuncture. However, they failed to search the Chinese databases, such as Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (which includes the database China Academic Journals) (CNKI), VIP Information (VIP), and Wanfang Data (WAN FANG). Thus, to our best knowledge, the authors far failed to include at least 18 eligible studies (including four randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and 14 quasi-randomized controlled trials (Q-RCTs)). In addition, three of 4 included studies used wrong comparator that means both groups used acupuncture, which could not evaluate the effect of acupuncture [2-4].

References

1.Moretto EN, Wee B, Wiffen PJ, Murchison AG. Interventions for treating persistent and Intractable hiccups in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013; 1:CD008768.

2.Bao F, Liang Z, Wang F. Clinical observation on treatment of stubborn hiccup by acupuncture with different needle retaining time. World Journal of Acupuncture-Moxibustion 2003;13(2):50–4.

3.Jiang Feizhou.Stubborn hiccup treated with thumb-tack needles and needle-embedding on otopoint. Journal of Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion 2002;18(2):36.

4.Wang B. 80 cases of intractable hiccup treated by acupuncture. Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion 2011; 31(2):181–2.

On 2014 Aug 19, Qin-hong Zhang commented:

Comment on "Interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups in adults"

Zhang QH, Yue JH

Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, College of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China.

I read with great interest the published article by Moretto et al., entitled “Interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups in adults”[1]. They evaluated the effectiveness of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for treating persistent and intractable hiccups of any aetiology in adults. However, I had a few comments to make regarding the same. The authors only included four Chinese trials in acupuncture. However, they failed to search the Chinese databases, such as Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (which includes the database China Academic Journals) (CNKI), VIP Information (VIP), and Wanfang Data (WAN FANG). Thus, to our best knowledge, the authors far failed to include at least 18 eligible studies (including four randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and 14 quasi-randomized controlled trials (Q-RCTs)). In addition, three of 4 included studies used wrong comparator that means both groups used acupuncture, which could not evaluate the effect of acupuncture [2-4].

References

1.Moretto EN, Wee B, Wiffen PJ, Murchison AG. Interventions for treating persistent and Intractable hiccups in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013; 1:CD008768.

2.Bao F, Liang Z, Wang F. Clinical observation on treatment of stubborn hiccup by acupuncture with different needle retaining time. World Journal of Acupuncture-Moxibustion 2003;13(2):50–4.

3.Jiang Feizhou.Stubborn hiccup treated with thumb-tack needles and needle-embedding on otopoint. Journal of Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion 2002;18(2):36.

4.Wang B. 80 cases of intractable hiccup treated by acupuncture. Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion 2011; 31(2):181–2.