Individualised acupuncture provides long-term relief from chronic neck pain

Individualised acupuncture provides long-term relief from chronic neck pain

Individualised acupuncture that targets sensitive acupoints is more effective than sham or waiting list controls for reducing chronic neck pain (CNP), with sustained benefits over 24 weeks. A multicentre trial conducted in China randomly assigned 716 participants with CNP to one of four groups: waiting list (WL), highly sensitive acupoints (HSA), less sensitive acupoints (LSA) or sham acupoints (SA). Each group received ten acupuncture sessions over four weeks. The primary outcome was the change in the visual analogue scale (VAS) score for neck pain (range 0-100), assessed at baseline, at 4 weeks and at 24 weeks. At week 4, the HSA group showed a significant reduction in pain (-12.16 points), compared to smaller changes in the LSA (-10.19 points), SA (-6.11 points), and WL (-2.24 points) groups. The improvements in pain scores persisted through 24 weeks. However, while both the HSA and LSA interventions were more effective than SA and WL, the difference in pain reduction between the treatment groups did not reach what the researchers had established as the minimal threshold to indicate clinically significant benefit from acupuncture. (Long-Term Effects of Individualized Acupuncture for Chronic Neck Pain : A Randomized Controlled Trial. Ann Intern Med. 2024 Oct;177(10):1330-1338. doi: 10.7326/M23-2425. Epub 2024 Sep 3).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39222507/