Acupuncture, an early way to manage and treat rheumatoid arthritis: Study
Portugal: A recent study suggests that acupuncture may be a non-pharmacological intervention to start early after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for managing and treating the disease based on each patient's individual need. The findings of the study were presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2021.
According to the study, the effect of acupuncture was evident in patients whose treatment was combined with the pharmacological treatment already in place. Also, the decrease in the DAS28-CRP score was clearly visible implying that acupuncture when combined with treatment already underway allows decreasing RA activity.
Diana Seixas, ICBAS, Porto, Portugal, and the team aimed to investigate the effect of acupuncture, combined with the pharmacological treatment instituted, on RA activity, through DAS28-CRP in a randomized, prospective, and controlled experimental study.
Patients have submitted one acupuncture session per week for 8 consecutive weeks. DAS28-CRP evaluation was done immediately before the 1st acupuncture session and another evaluation one week after the last acupuncture session. The study included 101 patients who were randomly assigned to an Experimental Group (EG), submitted to acupuncture (n=50), and Control Group (CG), not submitted to acupuncture (n=51).
All maintained pharmacological treatment in progress, not initiating any other pharmacological and/or non-pharmacological treatment during the present study.
Based on the study, the researchers found the following:
- The results obtained in the first evaluation were similar between the study groups, with no significant differences that allow them to be distinguished from each other, mean (4,129 versus 4,245) and median (4,220 versus 4,200), classifying them as EG and CG, respectively, with moderate activity, defined by DAS28-CRP.
- In the evaluation carried out after treatment with acupuncture for EG patients, it was obtained through the DAS28-CRP score, mean (2,993) and median (4,541). CG patients, in the last evaluation, presented different and very significant results, namely the mean (4,541) and median (4,705).
- According to the definition by DAS28-CRP, after treatment with acupuncture, the EG decreased the disease activity index, defining itself with low activity, in contrast to the CG that maintained values very close to those of the first evaluation, with a moderate disease activity index.
To conclude, the authors suggested that acupuncture may be a non-pharmacological intervention to start early, when diagnosing RA, as a way of managing and treating the disease, based on the individual needs of each patient.
Reference:
Seixas D, Farinha F, Pacheco da Fonte M, Laranjeira M, Rua M. Acupuncture in Rheumatoid Arthritis Activity [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2021; 73 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/acupuncture-in-rheumatoid-arthritis-activity/. Accessed November 12, 2021.
