Acupuncture for IVF
Acupuncture has become popular in the management of
subfertility. Acupuncture has been widely used during IVF process. A recent
study has searched clinical trials on acupuncture for IVF and evaluated the
impact of acupuncture during in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment on the
outcomes of clinical pregnancy. Data sources used included MEDLINE, Embase, Web
of Knowledge and the Chinese Biomedical Database. The researchers found that there
was no statistically significant difference between the acupuncture group and
no acupuncture (intervention) controls around the time of embryo transfer (ET;
risk ratio, RR, 1.24, 95% confidence interval, CI, 1.02-1.50) or in unblinded
trials, trials blinded to physicians and double-blind trials (95% CI 1.26-1.88,
0.82-1.33 and 0.89-1.25, respectively). This was also the case when comparing acupuncture
with sham acupuncture controls around the time of ET (RR, 1.03, 95% CI
0.87-1.22) or when restricting to unblinded trials, trials blinded to
physicians and double-blind trials (95% CI 0.80-2.02, 0.82-1.18 and 0.77-1.17,
respectively). There was a statistically significant difference when performed
at 30 min after ET and implantation phase (RR 1.76, 95% CI 1.22-2.55). There
was also a statistically significant difference when performed at follicle
phase and 25 min before and after ET (RR 1.56, 95% CI 1.04-2.33). The study
showed that acupuncture did not significantly improve the IVF clinical
pregnancy rate when performed only at the time of ET, while we found pooled
benefit of acupuncture for IVF when performed at follicle phase and 25 min
before and after ET, as well as 30 min after ET and implantation phase.
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