Article Text

Download PDFPDF

Acupuncture and asthma: a review of controlled trials.
  1. J Kleijnen,
  2. G ter Riet,
  3. P Knipschild
  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

    Abstract

    BACKGROUND: Published controlled trials of acupuncture in asthma have often contained a small number of subjects and the results are contradictory. Controlled trials have been reviewed to determine whether clearer conclusions could be obtained by assessing as many studies as possible according to methodological criteria. METHODS: A literature search produced 13 trials on the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of patients with asthma. These studies were reviewed on the basis of 18 predefined methodological criteria. A maximum of 100 points for study design could be earned in three main categories: (a) adequate study population, (b) adequate intervention, and (c) adequate measurement of effects. RESULTS: The quality of even the eight better studies (more than 50% of the maximum score) proved to be mediocre. No study earned more than 72% of the maximum score. The results from the better studies are highly contradictory. CONCLUSIONS: Claims that acupuncture is effective in the treatment of asthma are not based on the results of well performed clinical trials.

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.