Adding acupuncture to medication improved childhood allergic rhinitis outcomes more than medication alone, whereas acupuncture alone showed no clear advantage.
The researchers systematically searched multiple medical databases for randomized controlled trials involving children with allergic rhinitis. They compared acupuncture alone, or acupuncture combined with medication, against medication alone, assessing nasal symptoms, blood immunoglobulin E levels, and relapse.
Across the included studies, acupuncture alone did not produce a clearly superior effect to medication alone. However, combining acupuncture with medication showed better treatment outcomes than medication alone, although the overall certainty of the evidence was limited by study quality.
