Is acupuncture dose dependent? Ramifications of acupuncture treatment dose within clinical practice and trials (Editorial)

Abstract

Acupuncture is known to have been practiced for more than 2000 years in China and then throughout East Asia. However, it only began to be studied in controlled clinical trials starting in the second half of the 20th century and in the West starting in the 1970s. Over that period of time, a pattern has emerged with trials carried out in countries such as China, Korea, and Japan tending to identify acupuncture as having a consistently high rate of effectiveness, often in the 90 % range. Conversely, trials in Western countries tend to show lower overall effectiveness rates and to demonstrate a great deal of variation in effectiveness rates between different trials.1 Some have gone so far as to say that the consistently high effectiveness rates of Chinese trials indicate those trials cannot be trusted.2 Others have countered that many Western trials showing relatively lower effectiveness rates were conducted using poor clinical protocols and were carried out by acupuncturists with limited training.2