Five Clinical Trials on Acupuncture

Five Clinical Trials on Acupuncture

Elsewhere in this issue you will find no fewer than five randomized controlled trials of acupuncture and related techniques, ranging in size from a small comparative effectiveness study of manual acupuncture versus clonazepam for burning mouth syndrome by Jurisic Kvesic et al. (n=42) to a large multi-centre trial of “heat-sensitive” moxibustion for knee osteoarthritis by Chen et al. (n=432). In addition, Tzeng et al. and McKeon et al. report on their pilot studies of electroacupuncture for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and post-operative pain, respectively, and Liu et al. evaluate perioperative transcutaneous electrical acupuncture point stimulation in patients undergoing brain surgery. This diverse assortment of trials is followed by an appraisal by Kim et al. of a new sham press needle, which their volunteers were unable to reliably distinguish from a penetrating press needle. This is encouraging, however it remains unknown whether this sham needle is truly inert and/or whether it will achieve successful blinding of patients in randomized controlled trials.

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