Acupuncture in Pediatrics: A Scoping Review

Background: The use of acupuncture for common pediatric conditions continues to grow in the United States. Six previous reviews have summarized the research; however, approximately 8 years have accumulated adding to this growing body of literature. Objectives: The aim of this article is to provide a scoping review of acupuncture research in pediatric conditions and a summary of the effectiveness of acupuncture in the pediatric population. Methods: A systematic search was performed to identify clinical trials and reviews published between August 2015 and October 2023. Trials and reviews were excluded if they were not: (1) acupuncture specific, (2) data limited to pediatric patients, and (3) published in English. The literature was assessed and synthesized into a scoping review and commentary. Results: Seventy-one publications were identified (42 clinical trials and 29 reviews) that represented 17 conditions and 10 countries; the top 2 were China and the United States. The top five areas of new research (based on numbers of clinical trials) are pain, cerebral palsy (CP), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and nausea and vomiting. Conclusions: Clinical trials in pediatric acupuncture represent a small but important subset of acupuncture literature. Data are positive for postoperative nausea and vomiting and promising for CP, nocturnal enuresis, perioperative pain, procedural pain, and tic disorders. Several factors preclude additional firm conclusions from being drawn, including a limited number of trials, small sample size (n < 100) of the majority of randomized controlled trials (78.6%), and heterogeneity of treatment approaches. Continued research on the use of acupuncture for pediatric conditions is warranted, particularly in conditions demonstrating recent promising evidence.