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Acupuncture Eases lower Back Pain
British Study Shows Small, Long-Term
Benefit
Acupuncture can provide long-lasting
benefits to low back pain sufferers, and is a cost
effective treatment, according to new research from
the U.K.
Patients treated with 10 sessions of
acupuncture over three months reported less pain at
a 24-month follow-up than patients who did not get
the therapy.
The difference between the two groups
was small, however, with researchers concluding
there was a "small benefit" at two years.
Study co-author Hugh MacPherson, PhD,
characterized acupuncture's impact on the patients'
pain as modest, but he tells WebMD that the ancient
Chinese medical treatment has proven its worth as an
adjunct to traditional therapies for nonspecific
back pain.
"Acupuncture definitely has a role in
the treatment of low back pain," he says. "And it
seems to be associated with longer-term effects than
anyone has realized."
Back Pain Hard to Treat
Chronic back pain is one the most
common and difficult-to-treat medical problems in
health care.
The costs in terms of lost
productivity and workers' compensation are
staggering.
Acupuncture has become an accepted
treatment for the condition in both the United
States and in Europe. But clinical evidence of its
effectiveness has been equivocal.
In an analysis of 33 studies,
published in 2005, acupuncture was found to be an
effective short-term treatment for low back pain,
even when compared with sham treatments using fake
acupuncture, says Eric Manheimer, MS, of the Center
for Integrative Medicine at the University of
Maryland.
"Our analysis suggested that the
benefits of acupuncture for low back pain are not
due to a placebo effect," Manheimer tells WebMD.
But a large study published in
February of this year showed otherwise.
Low back pain patients treated with
acupuncture reported better pain control than those
who got no acupuncture.
But they fared no better than
patients treated with sham acupuncture, in which
needles were placed superficially in the skin in
areas not considered active acupuncture sites.
No Sham Group
The newly published study did not
include a sham acupuncture control group because the
point was to examine the treatment in a real-world
clinical setting, MacPherson tells WebMD.
The study included 241 adults who had
had nonspecific low back pain for four to 52 weeks.
Patients were randomly assigned to
receive either standard care or acupuncture, along
with individualized treatment administered by a
general practitioner. Standard care included
medications, back exercises, and physiotherapy (such
as massage therapy).
Pain levels were assessed at 12 and
24 months. Also, the researchers measured use of
pain medication and patient satisfaction with
treatment at three, 12, and 24 months.
At three months, patients in the
acupuncture group were much more likely to report
being "very satisfied" with their treatment than
those who did not get the therapy.
And at 24 months, the acupuncture
group was more likely to report less worry about
their back pain and less use of pain drugs.
They were also more likely to report
having no pain for at least a year, leading the
authors to conclude acupuncture provided
long-lasting benefits.
"This was one of the most unexpected
findings," MacPherson says.
In a separate analysis, acupuncture
was also found to be cost effective compared with
the usual treatment without acupuncture.
Evidence is mounting that acupuncture
can help people with low back pain, but few studies
have compared the treatment to other
non-conventional therapies.
Chiropractic approaches to pain
control are widely used in the United States. And at
least one recent study showed benefits for
acupressure, which does not use needles.
"There has been very little research
comparing treatments head to head, so we can't say
much about which ones work best," Manheimer says.
© 2006, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
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