Acupuncture is better in improving lower back pain, as compared with no treatment at all. Previous studies have yielded inconclusive results concerning the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat lower back pain. To further investigate, the researchers evaluated nearly 300 patients to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture for lower back pain. The investigators from the Charite University Medical Centre in Berlin found that a minimal intervention consisting of superficial needle placement at non-acupuncture points resulted in the back pain improvement. The patients were randomly assigned to real acupuncture treatment, sham or minimal acupuncture, or no acupuncture treatment. Real and minimal acupuncture consisted of 12 treatment sessions over 8 weeks. All subjects completed a pain questionnaire at 8, 26 and 52 weeks. The results showed that after 8 weeks of treatment, pain intensity had decreased by approximately 29 percent in the acupuncture group, 24 percent in the minimal acupuncture group, and 7 percent in the control group. At weeks 26 and 52, back pain was still reduced, with no significant differences between the full-acupuncture and the minimal-acupuncture group. The findings suggest that it is possible the selection of acupuncturists influenced the results, and probably the correct location of needles plays only a limited role in management of back pain.
Archives of Internal Medicine,
March 2006