Objectives The purpose of this study is to systematically review the degree of pain and function improvement in acupuncture treatment for patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). Methods Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were searched from Medline/PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, WanFang Data, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Citation Information by NII (CiNII), Koreanstudies Information Service System (KISS), ScienceON, KoreaMed, and Korean Medical Database (KMbase). The method-logical quality of selected RCTs’ were evaluated according to Cochrane RoB2 tool. Results Total of 158 studies were identified and 7 RCTs were selected for systematic review. Frequently used evaluation method were visual analogue scale and Kujala scores. All studies showed significant effect on pain reduction and knee function be-tween before and after treatment, but showed partial significance between the inter-vention and control group. Conclusions Research showed that acupuncture treatment is an effective treatment for improving the pain and function of PFPS, but it is difficult to conclude that it has a significant effect compared to other treatments. Selected studies included subjective evaluation indicators and the total of selected studies were small, so the interpretation of the results is limited. Also most of the included studies are evaluated to have some concerns of bias. Therefore, subsequent research should continously be done in more objective and systematic method. (J Korean Med Rehabil 2023;33(2):19-32)