Acupuncture has been found to be significantly effective in improving outcomes for adults suffering from temporomandibular disorder.
For this study, 11 Korean and worldwide databases were extensively searched to identify research papers that explored the utilization of acupuncture in adults with Temporomandibular disorder. A thorough assessment of the risk of bias was conducted on all discovered articles using the well-regarded Cochrane risk assessment methodology. This was subsequently followed by a meta-analysis, wherein the articles were grouped based on the type of control used - inactive control, active control or add-on treatments. The overall quality of evidence was evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation methodology.
In the discussion of the study's results: the investigations involved a broad qualitative analysis of 32 randomized clinical trials where acupuncture was the primary intervention. Of these, 22 articles (which collectively engaged 471 participants) were included in a more exhaustive quantitative analysis. It was found that acupuncture had a sizeable effect on improving the outcomes for Temporomandibular disorder patients. This outcome improvement was particularly notable when compared against active controls and was even more significant when the acupuncture was used as an add-on treatment in the care regimen. However, it should be noted that the overall quality of the evidence was graded from low to very low.
