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- Title
Treatment of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with acupuncture during hospitalization: a three-arm double-blinded randomized sham-controlled trial.
- Authors
Levy, Ilana; Elimeleh, Yotam; Gavrieli, Sagi; Attias, Samuel; Schiff, Ariel; Oliven, Arie; Schiff, Elad
- Abstract
Background: Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) are a healthcare burden. Acupuncture improves dyspnea in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but, to the best of our knowledge, has not been tested in AECOPD. Here, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of true acupuncture added to standard of care (SOC), as compared with both sham procedure plus SOC and SOC only, for the treatment of AECOPD among inpatients. Methods: This double-blinded randomized sham-controlled trial was set in a tertiary hospital in Israel. Patients with a clinical diagnosis of AECOPD were assigned to true acupuncture with SOC, sham procedure with SOC or SOC only. The primary outcome was dyspnea improvement as measured daily by the validated modified Borg (mBorg) scale. Secondary outcomes included improvement of other patient-reported outcomes and physiologic features, as well as duration of hospitalization and treatment failure. Acupuncture-related side effects were evaluated by the validated Acup-AE questionnaire. Results: Seventy-two patients were randomized: 26 to acupuncture treatment, 24 to sham and 22 to SOC only arms. Baseline characteristics were similar in the three groups. A statistically significant difference in dyspnea intensity was found from the first day of evaluation after treatment (p = 0.014) until day 3 after treatment. Similar results were found for sputum production, but no statistical significance was found when comparing physiologic features between the three arms. Acupuncture was not associated with adverse events. Conclusion: Acupuncture seems to be efficacious in the treatment of AECOPD among inpatients hospitalized in internal medicine departments. Trial registration number: NCT03398213 (ClinicalTrials.gov)
- Subjects
ISRAEL; OBSTRUCTIVE lung disease diagnosis; OBSTRUCTIVE lung disease treatment; MEDICAL quality control; LENGTH of stay in hospitals; KRUSKAL-Wallis Test; STATISTICS; STATISTICAL significance; ANALYSIS of variance; SAMPLE size (Statistics); CONFIDENCE intervals; ACUPUNCTURE; INTEGRATIVE medicine; MULTIVARIATE analysis; MULTIPLE regression analysis; HEALTH outcome assessment; QUANTITATIVE research; FISHER exact test; TREATMENT effectiveness; RANDOMIZED controlled trials; DYSPNEA; TREATMENT failure; QUALITATIVE research; HOSPITAL care; BLIND experiment; OBSTRUCTIVE lung diseases; QUESTIONNAIRES; CHI-squared test; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; STATISTICAL sampling; ALTERNATIVE medicine; DATA analysis; DATA analysis software; ACUTE diseases; DISEASE exacerbation; EVALUATION
- Publication
Acupuncture in Medicine, 2022, Vol 40, Issue 6, p505
- ISSN
0964-5284
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/09645284221086293