Strong electroacupuncture for at least two weeks improves chronic pain management in knee osteoarthritis patients better than weak or sham electroacupuncture.

2019 Arthritis Research & Therapy Effects of intensity of electroacupuncture on chronic pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a randomized controlled trial Lv, Z., Shen, L., Zhu, B. et al.

Randomised Controlled Trial Knee Osteoarthritis

In this investigation, a multicenter, three-arm parallel, single-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted in which 301 patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis were randomly divided into three groups based on the electroacupuncture current intensity: strong, weak, and sham. Treatments were carried out in five sessions per week over a two-week period. The impact of these treatments was primarily measured by assessing the Visual Analog Scale, conditioned pain modulation function, and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index.

After a week of electroacupuncture, a clinically significant improvement was observed in Visual Analog Scale scores and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index scores, but not in conditioned pain modulation function. However, after two weeks of treatment, improvements were seen in all three primary outcomes when compared to baseline. In terms of enhancing conditioned pain modulation function specifically, both weak and strong electroacupuncture outperformed the sham option, with strong electroacupuncture showing superiority to weak, and resulted in better pain management.

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