Acupuncture for chronic pain

摘要

A systematic review of 31 randomised-controlled trials (29 included in a meta-analysis) finds that acupuncture results in significant improvement in four types of chronic pain (back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache, and shoulder pain) when compared with 'sham acupuncture' (where the patient is led to believe they are getting acupuncture but, for example, the needles either do not penetrate the skin or are not inserted into traditional acupuncture sites) and non-acupuncture controls.