EFFICACY OF CHINESE ACUPUNCTURE ON POSTOPERATIVE ORAL-SURGERY PAIN

One of the challenges of acupuncture research is designing appropriate control groups. To address this problem, after surgical third molar e xtractions 19 patients were randomly assigned to an acupuncture group (n = 11) or a placebo acupuncture group (n = 8). The length of time fo r reaching moderate pain and pain intensity after oral surgery were re corded by standard patient self-report. The results indicated that sub jects treated with acupuncture reported longer pain-free duration time s (mean, 181 versus 71 minutes; p less than or equal to 0.046) and exp erienced less pain intensity than those who received placebo acupunctu re. This study provides a model for an acupuncture control that could examine the placebo effect in clinical acupuncture research.