Chinese traditional acupuncture provides pain relief and
improves function for people with arthritis of the knee and serves
as an effective complement to standard care, the US National
Institutes of Health (NIH) said in a research report.
The landmark findings were published in the Annals of Internal
Medicine released on Wednesday.
The research, the longest and largest clinical trial of
acupuncture ever conducted, was funded by the National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National
Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
(NIAMS). Both are components of the NIH.
"For the first time, a clinical trial with sufficient rigor,
size, and duration has shown that acupuncture reduces the pain and
functional impairment of arthritis of the knee," NCCAM Director
Stephen E. Straus said in a NIH press release on Tuesday.
"These results also indicate that acupuncture can serve as an
effective addition to a standard regimen of care and improve
quality of life for knee arthritis sufferers," he said.
Acupuncture is the practice of inserting thin needles into
specific body points to improve health and well-being, a
traditional method originated in China more than 2,000 years
ago.
In a survey conducted in 2002 by the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), the practice had been used by 2.1
million American adults.
In the study, researchers enrolled 570 patients aged 50 or older
with arthritis of the knee. Participants had significant pain in
their knee the month before joining the study, but had never
experienced acupuncture, knee surgery, or steroid injections
thereafter.
The participants were randomly assigned to receive one of three
treatments: acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or participation in a
control group that followed the Arthritis Foundation's self-help
course for managing their condition.
During the study, 190 patients received true acupuncture, 191
patients received sham acupuncture for 24 treatment sessions over
26 weeks. Sham acupuncture is a procedure designed to prevent
patients from being able to detect if needles are actually inserted
at treatment points.
Other 189 participants attended six, two-hour group sessions
over 12 weeks based on the self-help course. And all patients' pain
and knee function were assessed using standard arthritis research
survey instruments and measurement tools.
Overall, those who received acupuncture had a 40 percent
decrease in pain and a nearly 40 percent improvement in function
compared to baseline assessments.
In their article titled "Effectiveness of Acupuncture as
Adjunctive Therapy in Osteoarthritis of the Knee", the researchers
concluded that "acupuncture seems to provide improvement in
function and pain relief as an adjunctive therapy for arthritis of
the knee when compared with credible sham acupuncture and education
control groups."
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(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2004)