CONCLUSION
There is no significant difference between the immediate
effects of a single session of MA and EA on pain,
muscle strength and mobility in patients with knee
OA.
Summary points
▸ Manual acupuncture and electroacupuncture are both
used to treat osteoarthritis pain but are rarely compared
directly.
▸ As a first step, we compared the effect of a single
session of each.
▸ Pain was reduced by 42% and 52% following manual
acupuncture and electroacupuncture, respectively,
with no significant difference between the groups.
Contributors RP, REL: conception and design of the study and
writing the manuscript. RP, WBV, FADA: data acquisition. EYN:
data analysis.
Competing interests None.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics
Committee of Universidade Cidade de Sao Paulo (UNICID).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally
peer reviewed.