Acupuncture works - but so do random jabs with needle

Acupuncture is effective in relieving osteoarthritis knee pain, new research suggests, but placebo acupuncture appears to also work.

As reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, acupuncture was 53.1 per cent successful in treating symptoms of knee osteoarthritis. However, a sham procedure that looked like acupuncture, but provided no actual benefit, was a close second with a success rate of 51 per cent.

Still, the authors are reluctant to dismiss acupuncture as a treatment for knee osteoarthritis. The findings support a role for acupuncture as part of the treatment of "patients with pain and functional limitations due to osteoarthritis of the knee, even if the mechanisms of its effects remain unclear", they write. Acupuncture could add to the effects of more conservative therapy and reduce the need for pain medications.

The findings stem from a study of more than 1000 patients who had pain due to osteoarthritis for at least six months. In addition to undergoing six physiotherapy sessions and receiving anti-inflammatory drugs as needed, the patients were randomly assigned to undergo 10 sessions of traditional Chinese acupuncture, 10 sessions of sham acupuncture, or 10 physician visits within a six-week period. If the treatment was viewed as successful, the patient could receive five additional sessions or visits.

The sham acupuncture consisted of minimal depth needling at points away from recognised traditional Chinese acupuncture sites, lead author Dr Hanns-Peter Scharf, from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and colleagues note.

Successful treatment was defined as a 36 per cent or greater improvement in osteoarthritis index scores.

As noted, the two acupuncture treatments achieved success rates of around 52 per cent each. By contrast, the success rate with conservative therapy was just 29.1 per cent. Compared with conservative therapy, the two forms of acupuncture were roughly 74 per cent more likely to be effective. More study is needed to determine if the mechanism of acupuncture's effect is linked to the physiological effects of needling, to more intense contact with the health provider or to a placebo effect, the authors conclude.

- REUTERS