Positive Health Online

Abstract

MACPHERSON and colleagues, Foundation for Traditional Chinese Medicine, York, UK, hugh@ftcm.org.uk, conducted a survey of professional acupuncturists to obtain information on the type and frequency of adverse events and transient reactions reported following individual acupuncture treatment sessions.

Background

Methodology

The researchers contacted by post 1848 professional acupuncturists who were members of the British Acupuncture Council and practising in the UK. The acupuncturists were provided with standardized self-report forms to give to their patients, to be completed following a treatment, that detailed adverse events and transient reactions. Serious adverse events were defined as those requiring hospital admission, prolonging hospital stays, being permanently disabling or resulting in death. The researchers sought a sample size of at least 30,000 treatments, and a pilot study indicated that a 4-week period would be needed to obtain results from this number of treatments.

Results

574 of the acupuncturists (31%) responded to the survey, reporting on adverse events and transient reactions associated with a total of 34,407 treatments . No serious adverse events were reported. There were reports of 43 significant 'minor' adverse events (rate 1.3 per 1000 treatments), which included: severe nausea and fainting (12), unexpected, severe and prolonged exacerbation of symptoms (7), prolonged and unacceptable pain and bruising (5) and psychological/emotional reactions (4). Three events could have been avoided: in two patients, acupuncture needles were left in by mistake; one patients suffered moxa burns to the skin due to practitioner error. Reports of local reactions included mild bruising (1.7%), pain (1.2%) and bleeding (0.4%) . 10,920 mild transient reactions were recorded as occurring during 5136 treatments, accounting for 15% of all adverse events reported. Mild transient reactions most commonly reported after treatment were 'feeling relaxed' (11.9%) and 'feeling energized' (6.6%). After approximately 3% of treatments, patients reported an exacerbation of their symptoms.

Conclusion

This survey of more than 34,000 acupuncture treatments resulted in no reports of serious adverse events . The reported frequency of significant 'minor' adverse events was just over 0.1%. Local reactions were reported after less than 4% of treatments. Mild transient reactions, the most common of which were 'feeling relaxed' and 'feeling energized', occurred after 15% of treatments. Worsening of patients' original symptoms was reported after about 3% of treatments. The authors of this report point out that, compared with adverse events reported due to medication routinely prescribed in primary care, these results indicate acupuncture to be a relatively safe treatment modality .

References

MacPherson H et al. A prospective survey of adverse events and treatment reactions following 34,000 consultations with professional acupuncturists. Acupuncture in Medicine 19 (2): 93-102.