Introduction Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often suffer from expectoration. To address this problem, active cycle of breathing techniques (ACBT) can be applied. However, the effects of ACBT on COPD patients have shown mixed results. Therefore, we investigated the effectiveness of ACBT in patients with COPD by conducting a systematic review of the literature. Evidence acquisition Seven electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL, China National Knowledge Infrastructure [CNKI], Chinese Biomedical Literature [CBM], and Wanfang Database) were carefully searched from August 17th to 19th, 2019. Evidence synthesis The search yielded 2224 records, and ultimately only eight articles were selected for analysis. A total of 390 patients were included in the eight studies. The intervention program is a comparison of ACBT with non-ACBT. For COPD patients, ACBT was more effective in sputum production and cough efficiency. Compared with usual care, ACBT may improve lung function, blood gas analysis, and other parameters. Conclusions Our systematic review found that ACBT can effectively improve the sputum production and cough efficiency in patients with COPD. However, there was no definite conclusion on the effectiveness of ACBT on lung function, blood gas analysis and other aspects. More research and quantitative analyses are needed to confirm the effectiveness of ACBT on other aspects of COPD patient.
