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Pediatric Pain Improves With Acupuncture: Presented at WCA

By Jill Stein

PARIS, FRANCE -- April 21, 2004 -- Acupuncture can be safely and successfully integrated into a paediatric pain management practice, according to research presented by researchers at Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Speaking here on April 20^th at the 13^th World Congress of Anaesthesiologists, Dr. Yuan-Chi Lin, director of the Children's Medical Acupuncture Service, Children's Hospital Boston, reported the results from 2 years of experience in integrating acupuncture into a paediatric practice at his institution.

Dr. Lin presented data on 368 children with a mean age of 13.1 years, who received acupuncture treatments over a recent 2.5-year period. Overall, 117 patients were seen initially as inpatient consultations. Patients were usually treated once a week for approximately 6 weeks.

The researchers used the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), which ranged from 0 to 10, to evaluate treatment efficacy.

Presenting complaints included the following headache in 21% of patients; neck shoulder, and arm pain in eight%; chest pain in 3%, abdominal pain in 20%, nausea and vomiting in 6%, pelvic pain in 2%, and 30% presented with low back, hips, and lower extremity pain. The remaining 10% of complaints were classified as miscellaneous.

Results in 191 patients who completed 6 sessions of treatment showed a reduction in mean VAS score from 8.3 prior to treatment to 3.3 at the end of treatment. Overall, there was a mean reduction in VAS score of 5.0 (P < .01).

There were no reported adverse effects or complications related to acupuncture treatments, according to Dr. Lin.

"The data suggest that acupuncture can have a significant positive effect in managing paediatric pain," he said, adding that additional randomised studies will need to assess the short- and long-term effects of acupuncture in children.

The National Institutes of Health Consensus Panel on Acupuncture recently concluded that acupuncture is effective in decreasing dental pain and shows promising results for pain related to headache, menstruation, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial disorders, osteoarthritis, low back, and carpal tunnel syndrome.


[Study title: Acupuncture for paediatric pain: less pain more gain. Abstract 438]

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