Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Verum versus Sham Acupuncture for the Treatment of Migraine

Verum versus Sham Acupuncture for the Treatment of Migraine Letters meridian acupoints for migraine: a the meta-analysis, appears to be Verum versus sham randomized controlled trial. Zhongguo incorrect. Having reviewed the dis- acupuncture for the Zhen Jiu 2014;34:947–50. sertation detailing the primary trial 3 Foroughipour M, Golchian AR, Kalhor treatment of migraine by Li and Sun, we noticed that the M, et al. A sham-controlled trial of data presented were actually those acupuncture as an adjunct in migraine Dear Editor, obtained at 1 month post-treatment, prophylaxis. Acupunct Med We read with great interest the and not 3 months as stated. 2014;32:12–16. recently published article entitled In conclusion, for the aforemen- 4 Zhao L, Liu J, Zhang F, et al. Effects of “Verum versus sham manual acu- tioned reasons, the published con- long-term acupuncture treatment on puncture for migraine: a systematic clusions of Yang et al should be resting-state brain activity in migraine review of randomised controlled patients: a randomized controlled trial interpreted with great caution. trials” by Yang et al. The authors on active acupoints and inactive 1,2 1 acupoints. PLoS One 2014;9:e99538. examined the efficacy of verum acu- Jinhuan Yue, Zhongren Sun, 1,2 Qinhong Zhang 5 Wallasch TM, Weinschuetz T, Mueller puncture compared with sham acu- B, et al. Cerebrovascular response in puncture for the treatment of Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, migraineurs during prophylactic Second Hospital of Heilongjiang University of migraine. However, in our opinion, Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China treatment with acupuncture: a they should have exercised more Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University, randomized controlled trial. J Altern caution when drawing conclusions Stanford, California, USA Complement Med 2012;18:777–83. from the results of their study, which Correspondence to Prof Zhongren Sun, 6 Yang XG, Liang FR. A randomized had several drawbacks, as follows. Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, controlled trial of acupuncture for Second Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Firstly, as the database search only treating migraine with selecting Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China; sunzhong- included articles published up to 31 acupoints along meridian [Dissertation]. ren2011@163.com and Dr Qinhong Zhang, May 2014, several more recently Chengdu: Chengdu University of Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University, Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2009. published relevant studies will 300 Pasteur Dr, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; 2–4 7 Li Z, Sun ZR. Evaluation of clinical qinhong@stanford.edu unfortunately have been missed. effectiveness of acupuncture for Secondly, the quality of the studies ZS and JY contributed equally. migraine on the basis of evidence-based included was likely overestimated. Contributors All the authors conceived medicine [Dissertation]. Hei longjiang: the study, drafted the manuscript, The authors stated that they judged Hei longjiang University of Chinese contributed to the further writing of the the risk of performance bias as low manuscript and read and approved the Medicine, 2004. in all of the studies, including that final manuscript. related to the use of sham interven- Competing interests None declared. tions. However, we believe that this Provenance and peer review Not interpretation is incorrect, because it commissioned; internally peer reviewed. is also important in studies that include patients undergoing sham acupuncture as the control group to test whether or not blinding was suc- To cite Yue J, Sun Z, Zhang Q. Acupunct Med cessful. Only one of the 10 included 2016;34:242. primary trials clearly reported that Accepted 10 February 2016 patients were successfully blinded. Published Online First 20 April 2016 One report stated that patients were notin factblind and none of the others reported blinding success. In addition, although the authors ▸ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/acupmed-2015- reported having assessed the risk of selection bias, their explanations were not convincing. They stated Acupunct Med 2016;34:242. “although none of the study proto- doi:10.1136/acupmed-2016-011076 cols was published a priori, risk of selective reporting bias was deemed REFERENCES to be low” but did not explain how 1 Yang Y, Que QH, Ye XD, et al. Verum they came to regard the other indi- versus sham manual acupuncture for vidual bias domains as low risk. migraine: a systematic review of Thirdly, the information provided randomised controlled trials. Acupunct regarding the questionnaire scores Med 2016;34:76–83. reported in the study by Li and 2 Lin XM, Yao X, Di Z. Acupuncture at Sun, data from which was used in “Siguan” combined with gallbladder 242 Acupunct Med June 2016 Vol 34 No 3 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Acupuncture in Medicine SAGE

Verum versus Sham Acupuncture for the Treatment of Migraine

Acupuncture in Medicine , Volume 34 (3): 1 – Jun 1, 2016

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/verum-versus-sham-acupuncture-for-the-treatment-of-migraine-p0PUke7cdb

References (5)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 2016 British Medical Acupuncutre Society
ISSN
0964-5284
eISSN
1759-9873
DOI
10.1136/acupmed-2016-011076
pmid
27098760
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Letters meridian acupoints for migraine: a the meta-analysis, appears to be Verum versus sham randomized controlled trial. Zhongguo incorrect. Having reviewed the dis- acupuncture for the Zhen Jiu 2014;34:947–50. sertation detailing the primary trial 3 Foroughipour M, Golchian AR, Kalhor treatment of migraine by Li and Sun, we noticed that the M, et al. A sham-controlled trial of data presented were actually those acupuncture as an adjunct in migraine Dear Editor, obtained at 1 month post-treatment, prophylaxis. Acupunct Med We read with great interest the and not 3 months as stated. 2014;32:12–16. recently published article entitled In conclusion, for the aforemen- 4 Zhao L, Liu J, Zhang F, et al. Effects of “Verum versus sham manual acu- tioned reasons, the published con- long-term acupuncture treatment on puncture for migraine: a systematic clusions of Yang et al should be resting-state brain activity in migraine review of randomised controlled patients: a randomized controlled trial interpreted with great caution. trials” by Yang et al. The authors on active acupoints and inactive 1,2 1 acupoints. PLoS One 2014;9:e99538. examined the efficacy of verum acu- Jinhuan Yue, Zhongren Sun, 1,2 Qinhong Zhang 5 Wallasch TM, Weinschuetz T, Mueller puncture compared with sham acu- B, et al. Cerebrovascular response in puncture for the treatment of Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, migraineurs during prophylactic Second Hospital of Heilongjiang University of migraine. However, in our opinion, Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China treatment with acupuncture: a they should have exercised more Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University, randomized controlled trial. J Altern caution when drawing conclusions Stanford, California, USA Complement Med 2012;18:777–83. from the results of their study, which Correspondence to Prof Zhongren Sun, 6 Yang XG, Liang FR. A randomized had several drawbacks, as follows. Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, controlled trial of acupuncture for Second Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Firstly, as the database search only treating migraine with selecting Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China; sunzhong- included articles published up to 31 acupoints along meridian [Dissertation]. ren2011@163.com and Dr Qinhong Zhang, May 2014, several more recently Chengdu: Chengdu University of Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University, Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2009. published relevant studies will 300 Pasteur Dr, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; 2–4 7 Li Z, Sun ZR. Evaluation of clinical qinhong@stanford.edu unfortunately have been missed. effectiveness of acupuncture for Secondly, the quality of the studies ZS and JY contributed equally. migraine on the basis of evidence-based included was likely overestimated. Contributors All the authors conceived medicine [Dissertation]. Hei longjiang: the study, drafted the manuscript, The authors stated that they judged Hei longjiang University of Chinese contributed to the further writing of the the risk of performance bias as low manuscript and read and approved the Medicine, 2004. in all of the studies, including that final manuscript. related to the use of sham interven- Competing interests None declared. tions. However, we believe that this Provenance and peer review Not interpretation is incorrect, because it commissioned; internally peer reviewed. is also important in studies that include patients undergoing sham acupuncture as the control group to test whether or not blinding was suc- To cite Yue J, Sun Z, Zhang Q. Acupunct Med cessful. Only one of the 10 included 2016;34:242. primary trials clearly reported that Accepted 10 February 2016 patients were successfully blinded. Published Online First 20 April 2016 One report stated that patients were notin factblind and none of the others reported blinding success. In addition, although the authors ▸ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/acupmed-2015- reported having assessed the risk of selection bias, their explanations were not convincing. They stated Acupunct Med 2016;34:242. “although none of the study proto- doi:10.1136/acupmed-2016-011076 cols was published a priori, risk of selective reporting bias was deemed REFERENCES to be low” but did not explain how 1 Yang Y, Que QH, Ye XD, et al. Verum they came to regard the other indi- versus sham manual acupuncture for vidual bias domains as low risk. migraine: a systematic review of Thirdly, the information provided randomised controlled trials. Acupunct regarding the questionnaire scores Med 2016;34:76–83. reported in the study by Li and 2 Lin XM, Yao X, Di Z. Acupuncture at Sun, data from which was used in “Siguan” combined with gallbladder 242 Acupunct Med June 2016 Vol 34 No 3

Journal

Acupuncture in MedicineSAGE

Published: Jun 1, 2016

There are no references for this article.