Subscribe
Acupuncture/ pressurePainPMS/Dysmenorrhea

A bewildering study of acupuncture treatment of dysmenorrhea

JR

Why do CAM journals publish useless studies?

Case in point.

The magazine is called Evidenced-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

First, the details of the study.

  • 15 consecutive patients with NSAID-resistant dysmenorrhea related pain were treated with acupuncture.
  • No placebo or sham acupuncture group for comparison.
  • Researchers and patients knew their treatment.

And, the pseudo-results.

  • 13 of 15 patients had less pain.
  • Average pain duration was reduced.
  • Use of pain medicine decreased.
  • Despite less drug use, the cost of treatment was higher due to the added cost of acupuncture..

The bottom line?
There is none.

  • No proof acupuncture is better than no acupuncture for this use.
  • No proof that the reduction in pain medicine use would have been different compared to no acupuncture.
  • It certainly wasn’t cost effective.

9/23/07 16:18 JR

Hi, I’m JR

John Russo, Jr., PharmD, is president of The MedCom Resource, Inc. Previously, he was senior vice president of medical communications at www.Vicus.com, a complementary and alternative medicine website.

Related Posts