Acupuncture for Bell's palsy

Bell's palsy or idiopathic facial palsy is an acute facial paralysis due to inflammation of the facial nerve. A number of studies published in China have suggested acupuncture is beneficial for facial palsy.

The objective of this review was to examine the efficacy of acupuncture in hastening recovery and reducing long-term morbidity from Bell's palsy.

We searched the Cochrane Neuromuscular Disease Group Trials Register, MEDLINE (January 1966 to April 2006), EMBASE (January 1980 to April 2006), LILACS (from January 1982 to April 2006) and the Chinese Biomedical Retrieval System (January 1978 to April 2006) for randomised controlled trials using 'Bell's palsy' and its synonyms, 'idiopathic facial paralysis' or 'facial palsy' as well as search terms including 'acupuncture'. Chinese journals in which we thought we might find randomised controlled trials or controlled clinical trials relevant to our study were handsearched. We reviewed the bibliographies of the randomised trials and contacted the authors and known experts in the field to identify additional published or unpublished data.

We included all randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials involving acupuncture in the treatment of Bell's palsy irrespective of any language restrictions.

Two review authors identified potential articles from the literature search and extracted data independently using a data extraction form. The assessment of methodological quality included allocation concealment, patient blinding, differences at baseline of the experimental groups and completeness of follow-up. Two review authors assessed quality independently. All disagreements were resolved by discussion between the review authors.

Six studies including a total of 537 participants met the inclusion criteria. Five of them used acupuncture while another one used acupuncture combined with drugs. No trials reported on the outcomes specified for this review. Harmful side effects were not reported in any of the trials. Flaws in study design or reporting (particularly uncertain allocation concealment and substantial loss to follow-up) and clinical differences between trials prevented conclusions about the efficacy of acupuncture.

The quality of the included trials was inadequate to allow any conclusion about the efficacy of acupuncture. More research with high quality trials is needed.