Although there is not yet definitive evidence from a large scale randomized controlled trial that acupuncture is effective for treating rheumatological conditions, studies do appear to support the use of acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy for osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis

A number of controlled trials have been conducted during the past several decades suggesting that acupuncture is effective for the pain associated with osteoarthritis.

Patients in one small study showed significant improvement in pain scores and self-reported function, and in performance measures of function after 8 weeks of acupuncture treatment. In a larger but still small follow up trial, which examined the effect of acupuncture added to NSAID oral medication, the acupuncture treated group had significant improvement in self reported pain and disability scores compared with controls.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

A number of studies have suggested that acupuncture is effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis, but only one of these was a true randomized controlled trial.

This study used 10 patients with symmetric joint involvement and treated one knee with sham acupuncture and one knee with real acupuncture. The investigators reported that there was a significant improvement in pain relief in the knee treated with real acupuncture compared with the knee treated with sham acupuncture.

The average pain-free duration in the acupuncture-treated knee was 1 to 3 months versus less than 10 hours in the sham acupuncture-treated knee.

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