Efficacy of acupuncture on fibromyalgia syndrome: a meta-analysis

To comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for fibromyalgia syndrome.

Two review authors independently selected the trials for the Meta-analysis, assessed their methodological quality and extracted relevant data. A quality assessment was conducted according to the Cochrane Review Handbook 5.0. RevMan 5.0.20 software was used in the statistical analysis.

A total of 523 trials were reviewed and 9 trials were selected for Meta-analysis. (a) Compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture, there was a significant difference in the visual analogue scale, but no difference in the pressure pain threshold. Additionally, and there was a difference in the fibromyalgia impact questionnaire and the multidisciplinary pain inventory after 4 weeks of treatment, but no difference after 7 weeks of therapy. There was no difference in the numerical rating scale in weeks 3, 8 and 13. (b) Acupuncture versus drugs. There were differences in the VAS after 20 days of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment comparing with the drug amitriptyline, and after 4 weeks of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment comparing with the drug fluoxetine and amitriptyline. There were also differences in the number of tender points when comparing acupuncture with amitriptyline or fluoxetine. There was no difference in total efficiency when comparing acupuncture with amitriptyline after 4 weeks of treatment, but there were differences between the two groups 45 days after treatment. There were also differences in total efficiency comparing acupuncture with fluoxetine, and when comparing 4 weeks post-treatment of acupuncture with a combination of amitriptyline, oryzanol and vitamin B. (c) A comparison of acupuncture, drugs and exercise with drugs and exercise showed PPT differences in months 3 and 6. There was no difference between the two comparison groups after follow-up visits in months 12 and 24.

Compared with sham acupuncture, there was not enough evidence to prove the efficacy of acupuncture therapy for the treatment of fibromyalgia. Some evidence testified that the effectiveness of acupuncture therapy for fibromyalgia was superior to drugs; however, the included trials were not of high quality or had high bias risks. Acupuncture combined with drugs and exercise could increase pain thresholds in the short-term, but there is a need for higher quality randomized controlled trials to further confirm this.