Acupuncture can significantly improve symptoms in Meniere's disease, Study finds
A study published in Frontiers in Medicine found that acupuncture can effectively treat Meniere's disease (MD), a chronic inner ear disease.
Meniere's disease (MD) is an idiopathic chronic inner ear disease characterized by vertigo, nausea, vomiting, hearing loss, tinnitus, or aural fullness. It affects the quality of life due to its impact on the patients' physical and mental health. There is a lot of ambiguity on the etiopathogenesis and the management of MD. Despite the efficacy of medications, additional and alternative treatment modalities are necessary for the management of MD. Hence, researchers from the Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China, conducted a systematic review of the efficacy of acupuncture treatment for MD.
The systematic review collected data from eight databases and focused on studies evaluating the efficacy of acupuncture on MD. Researchers used the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 tool to assess the risk of bias in the randomized controlled trials. RevMan 5.4 and Stata 16.0 software were used to conduct the meta-analysis.
Findings:
- The review included six studies in total.
- There were two groups: the treatment group and the control group.
- The treatment group received acupuncture alone or a combination of acupuncture with Western medicine.
- The control group was treated with Western medicine alone.
- The treatment group was significantly better than the control group in terms of efficacy rate
- The treatment group was found to have significantly improved scores on the dizziness handicap inventory (DHI), tinnitus handicap inventory (THI), stuffy ear visual analog scale (VAS), and pure tone audiometry score.
Limitations:
Despite these significant improvements, certain limitations remained, such as inadequate blinding procedures, inconsistent outcome measures, and variations in clinical interventions. The variations were a selection of acupoints, acupuncture sessions, and therapist techniques.
The study concluded that acupuncture can effectively reduce MD and its symptoms of vertigo, tinnitus, ear fullness, and hearing loss. However, the researchers highlighted the necessity of rigorous and long-term studies that can address the methodological shortcomings of the present studies. Further well-designed trials with long-term follow-ups have to be carried out to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in MD.
Further reading: Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of Meniere's disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1463821
