Comparative efficacy and safety of acupuncture and Western medicine for poststroke thalamic pain

Abstract

Poststroke thalamic pain (PSTP) is one of the most common sequelae following stroke. Analgesics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and surgical treatment are conventional treatment methods of PSTP, but these methods have limited efficacy, cost more, and cause a likelihood of adverse reactions. Clinical studies have shown that acupuncture has a significant analgesic effect on PSTP without obvious side effects. But, there is a lack of high‐quality evidence concerning its effectiveness and safety to support its use. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of acupuncture versus Western medicine for the treatment of PSTP to provide evidence to support clinical PSTP treatment. Searches were conducted to identify randomized controlled trials investigating the use of acupuncture for PSTP across six databases, including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang Database, and the Chinese Scientific Journal Database VIP. RevMan 5.3 software was used for the meta‐analysis. The results showed that compared with Western medicine, acupuncture had a higher total effective rate for the treatment of PSTP, reduced visual analog scale scores, increased beta‐endorphin content, and decreased incidence of adverse reactions. However, the sample sizes of the included studies were insufficient, and the quality of the articles was relatively poor. In future studies, the clinical study design should be standardized and the sample size should be expanded to validate these results.

Acupuncture for thalamic pain after stroke: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…[23] At present, there are few meta-analyses on acupuncture for thalamic pain. [24,25] Therefore, this study evaluated the safety and efficacy of acupuncture versus medication in the treatment of thalamic pain based on scientific evidence.…”

Traditional Chinese medicine in human diseases treatment: New insights of their potential mechanisms

“…Compared to medical and surgical therapy, acupuncture has the advantages of minimal side effects and low cost in treating poststroke thalamic pain. To further clarify the safety and effectiveness of acupuncture, Yang and his group searched the database (PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang Database, and the Chinese Scientific Journal Database VIP) and systematically evaluated the randomized controlled trials (Yang et al, 2023). The results showed that the total effective rate of acupuncture in treating poststroke thalamic pain are reported to be greater than conventional therapies, with particular improvement of patients' visual analog score, beta‐endorphin content and reduction of adverse reactions (Yang et al, 2023).…”