Acupuncture No Better Than Sham for
Chronic Knee Pain in Adults 50+
Regardless of whether it's delivered traditionally orthrough a more
high-tech laser version, acupuncture doesn't appear to have any benefit
over sham procedures when it comes to reducing moderate-to-severe
knee pain in adults 50 and over, according to a study in the Journal o f the
American M edical Association (JAMA).
Researchers in Australia studied treatm ents of 282 patients who were
50 or older and had been experiencing m oderate to severe knee pain
on most days for a period of tim e longer than 3 months. The patients
were divided into 4 groups: a needle acupuncture group, a laser acupuncture
group, a sham laser acupuncture group, and a control group.
Acupuncture treatm ents were conducted 1 to 2 tim es weekly for 12
weeks. N either acupuncturists nor patients knew if they were involved
in the sham or actual laser treatm ent, but there was no sham treatm ent
used in the needle-based acupuncture group.
When the researchers compared self-reported knee pain and function
at baseline, 12 weeks, and after 1 year, they found "no significant differences
in prim ary outcom es between active and sham acupuncture at 12
weeks ... or 1 year."
"Although needle and laser acupuncture improved pain after treatment
compared with control, improvements were not sustained at 1 year and
were of clinically unim portant magnitude," authors write. "Improvement
in ... physical function with needle acupuncture relative to control at 12
weeks was of a clinically irrelevant magnitude and did not persist at 1 year.
Furthermore, this improvement was not different from sham laser."
"Among patients olderthan 50 years with moderate to severe chronic
knee pain, neither laser nor needle acupuncture conferred benefit over
sham for pain or function," they concluded. "O ur findings do not support
acupuncture for these patients."
However, they caution that the findings "likely only apply to patients with
clinically diagnosed osteoarthritis and moderate or severe pain ... and may
not be generalizable to end-stage radiographic disease."