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DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1769104
Acupuncture Clinical Trials on Knee Osteoarthritis
Abstract
The outcomes of eight acupuncture clinical trials on knee osteoarthritis were published in well-regarded English-language mainstream medical journals between 1975 and 2022. Reported trial results were equally balanced between positive and negative outcomes, thus producing an overall impression of ambiguity in regard to the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. This paper reviews these trials, analyzes the factors taken into account in each trial, and has posited two reasons for the continuing lack of consensus in regard to the medical effectiveness of acupuncture: the difficulty of designing scientifically consistent clinical-trial studies; and an institutional bias toward ambiguity on the part of scientific and medical journals.
Keywords
knee osteoarthritis - acupuncture - clinical trials - sham control - medical journals - institutional biasCRediT Authorship Contribution Statement
C.G. is responsible for writing—original draft, investigation, conceptualization, writing-review and editing.
Publikationsverlauf
Eingereicht: 23. Oktober 2022
Angenommen: 11. Oktober 2022
Artikel online veröffentlicht:
28. Juni 2023
© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Georg Thieme Verlag KG
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany
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