| Objective To find and summarize new clinical methods by accessing to information of external treatment to knee osteoarthritis (KOA) in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Methods All the Chinese and English research articles which included acupuncture and moxibustion, manipulation, needle-knife, hot compress, fuming and washing, medicine apply, plaster coating, and iontophoresis were searched from CNKI, Wanfang data, VIP database, and PubMed database from 2010 to 2015. Articles from famous magazines and with typical and innovative methods were chosen. The selected articles were classified, summarized and analyzed. Results The research of external treatment of KOA with TCM showed an increasing trend in domestic and overseas, but it was still less than internal one. There were mainly eight aspects using TCM theory including acupuncture and moxibustion，manipulation, needle-knife, hot compress，fuming and washing，medicine apply, plaster coating, and iontophoresis in the country. There were mainly three methods used overseas including acupuncture and moxibustion, manipulation, and needle- knife ,especially the use of acupuncture and moxibustion. Conclusion The use of external treatment of TCM for KOA has a good efficacy. It relieves pain and swelling. However, it is still short of scientific and accurate data. Further study is needed to provide the strong evidence for the clinical use. |