Insights & Discussion
Acupuncture therapy is more effective than NSAID in improving clinical efficacy rates and pain scores for treatment of chrondomalacia patellae.
To our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis of acupuncture therapy in the treatment of CMP. Seven RCT involving 707 patients with CMP were selected for this meta-analysis. Based on the findings of the present systematic review, acupuncture therapy can further improve the clinical effect and pain scores when compared with NSAID controls. However, the potential beneficial effect of acupuncture is possibly overstated owing to the low general methodological quality of the included RCT. Conclusions regarding the safety of acupuncture therapy cannot be drawn since the eligible trials provide no evidence on this aspect.
Discover Related Insights
Acupuncture may be effective at relieving chronic knee pain 12 weeks after acupuncture administration.
2017 Acupuncture in Medicine Updated systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture for chronic knee pain Zhang Q, Yue J, Golianu B, Sun Z, Lu Y.
Systematic Review Knee Pain
Nineteen trials were included in this systematic review. Of these, data from 17 studies were available for analysis. Regarding the effectiveness of acupuncture alone or combined with other treatment, the results of the meta-analysis showed that acupuncture was associated with significantly reduced CKP at 12 weeks on WOMAC pain subscale and VAS. As for safety, no difference was found between the acupuncture and control groups.