Acupuncture for Chronic Urinary Retention due to Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review
Jia Wang, Yanbing Zhai, Jiani Wu, Shitong Zhao, Jing Zhou, Zhishun Liu · Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine · 2016 April 13
DOI 10.1155/2016/9245186
Objective
The aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for CUR due to SCI.
Conclusions
Acupuncture as a complementary therapy may have a potential effect in CUR due to SCI in decreasing PVR and improving bladder voiding. Additionally, acupuncture may be safe in treating CUR caused by SCI. However, due to the lack of high quality RCTs, we could not draw any definitive conclusions. More well-designed RCTs are needed to provide strong evidence.
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Insights
Acupuncture as a complementary therapy may have a potential effect in chronic urinary retention due to spinal cord injury in decreasing postvoid residual urine volume and improving bladder voiding.
Acupuncture plus rehabilitation training was much better than rehabilitation training alone in decreasing postvoid residual urine volume for chronic urinary retention due to spinal cord injury, and combination of acupuncture and aseptic intermittent catheterization was more effective than aseptic intermittent catheterization alone in improving response rates for chronic urinary retention due to spinal cord injury.
