Acupuncture for overactive bladder in female adult: a randomized controlled trial

To assess the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating female adult with overactive bladder.

After we excluded other causes for storage symptoms, a total of 240 consecutive female patients with overactive bladder were enrolled and completed all aspects of this prospective randomized controlled trial, of which 118 cases were randomly assigned to receive a weekly acupuncture treatment (intervention group), while the other 122 cases were given a pharmacological treatment of oral tolterodine tartrate 2 mg twice daily (control group) for 4 weeks. Data on urgency, incontinence, micturition frequency, nocturia episodes and voided volume were collected and statistically analyzed before and after 4 weekly acupuncture treatments or 4 weeks' pharmacological treatment using a 3-day micturition diary.

The two groups of female patients with overactive bladder were given treatment with weekly acupuncture (n = 118), oral tolterodine tartrate (n = 122) for 4 weeks respectively. At weeks 4, subjects in both intervention and control groups had significant decreases in number of urinary urgency episodes, incontinence episodes, daytime frequency, nocturia episodes and increase in volume voided per micturition without a significant difference in the changes of overactive bladder symptoms between the groups. There were no serious adverse events during the study.

This randomized controlled trial demonstrates that acupuncture is safe with significant improvements in patient assessment of overactive bladder symptoms and may be considered a clinically alternative treatment for overactive bladder in female adult.