The Daily Mail reported an interesting review of seven published trials involving 1,366 women undergoing IVF in four different western countries who had acupuncture within one day of embryo transfer.
Researchers found a 65 % increased chance of pregnancy with acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture or no treatment while undergoing IVF. The benefit was smaller in trials where the baseline pregnancy rates were already high. However researchers said acupuncture may be cost-effective therapy in IVF compared with repeated fertility treatments.
Critics said the acupuncture benefit could be due to a placebo response but the authors said shame acupuncture did not increase the pregnancy rate among those women.
Source: "Effects of acupuncture on rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing in vitro fertilisation: systematic review and meta-analysis" BMJ, February 7, 2008 BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.39471.430451.BE (published 7 February 2008) ( Full text via Athens)
Showing posts with label acupuncture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acupuncture. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Acupuncture - best therapy for back pain
I learned from a mailing list that there was a large number of queries about a trial published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, September 2007.
It was a randomized and blinded trial conducted across 340 practices in Germany involving 1162 adults who had suffered from lower back pain for an average of 8 years. Patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: verum acupuncture, sham acupuncture or conventional therapy. After 6 months, nearly half of the patients receiving acupuncture treatment showed significant improvements in back pain compared to about one-quarter receiving conventional treatment.
The finding has led to acupuncture being adopted in Germany as a covered benefit for chronic lower back pain treatment under statutory health insurance plans.
It was a randomized and blinded trial conducted across 340 practices in Germany involving 1162 adults who had suffered from lower back pain for an average of 8 years. Patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: verum acupuncture, sham acupuncture or conventional therapy. After 6 months, nearly half of the patients receiving acupuncture treatment showed significant improvements in back pain compared to about one-quarter receiving conventional treatment.
The finding has led to acupuncture being adopted in Germany as a covered benefit for chronic lower back pain treatment under statutory health insurance plans.
Source: "German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for Chronic Low Back Pain - Randomized, Multicenter, Blinded, Parallel-Group Trial With 3 Groups , Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1892-1898 (Sept 27)
Read previous post on "Alternative medicine in the US medical curriculm" and the cut back on using complementary therapies in the UK.
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