Electro-acupuncture effective for pain management after Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

New research revealed that Electro-acupuncture could effectively and fastly reduce pain post Endoscopic sinus surgery. It had the benefit of improving sleep and also maintaining the heart rate and mean arterial pressure stability. The study results were published in The Journal of Pain. 

Endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) is the standard treatment for rhinosinusitis and polyposis but patients undergoing ESS often present with persistent postoperative pain due to surgical trauma and nasal packing. This also affects the quality of sleep and the recovery speed. It has been demonstrated that electroacupuncture (EA) effectively reduces postoperative pain. However, there is not much research on EA for individuals having endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). Hence researchers conducted a study to compare the effectiveness and safety of EA to a sham control in reducing pain following endoscopic sinus surgery. 62 patients in total were randomly assigned to receive EA (n = 31) or sham EA (n = 31) for 5 sessions lasting 30 minutes each over 4 days (two hours before and two hours after surgery, and three sessions per day for the next three days). There were no notable variations between the 2 groups regarding demographic traits. 

Key findings:

• Compared to the sham EA group, the EA group showed a significantly greater reduction in the pain intensity of single daily scoring with a numerical rating scale (NRS) on the day following surgery (postoperative day 1, POD1) and POD2.
• No significant between-group difference was detected on the day of surgery (POD0), POD3, or POD6.
• Intraoperative heart rate and mean blood pressure in the EA group showed a more stable trend.
• There was a noticeable improvement in an actigraphy-measured average time of night wakings, recovery time from anesthesia, and quality of recovery-15 (QoR-15) in the EA group.
• There were no severe adverse events during the trial.

The study found that EA can serve as an effective adjuvant therapeutic tool for pain relief after ESS. 

Further reading: Electro-acupuncture for Pain Relief after Endoscopic Sinus Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2023.06.010