Claudia M Witt1,2,3, Emily A Vertosick4, Nadine E Foster5, George Lewith6, Klaus Linde7, Hugh MacPherson8, Karen J Sherman9, Andrew J Vickers4. 1. Institute for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Zurich and University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. 2. Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin. 3. Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. 4. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. 5. Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre, Research Institute of Primary Care & Health Sciences, Keele University, Staffordshire. 6. Primary Care and Population Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton. 7. TUM Medical School, Institute of General Practice, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany. 8. Department of Health Sciences, University of York, York, UK. 9. Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To optimally select chronic pain patients for different treatments, as it is of interest to identify patient characteristics that might moderate treatment effect. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of possible moderators on the effect of acupuncture treatment using a large data set. METHODS: We used data from an individual patient data meta-analysis of high-quality randomized trials of acupuncture for chronic headache and migraine, osteoarthritis, and back, neck, and shoulder pain. Using meta-analytic trial-level and patient-level regression analyses, we explored the impact of 5 documented patient characteristics (patients' age at baseline, sex, pain duration, baseline pain severity and baseline psychological distress) on the effect of acupuncture. RESULTS: A total of 39 trials met the inclusion criteria: 25 use sham-acupuncture controls (n = 7097) and 25 non-acupuncture controls (n = 16,041). Of the 5 patient characteristics analyzed, only baseline pain severity was found to potentially moderate the treatment effect of acupuncture, with patients reporting more severe pain at baseline experiencing more benefit from acupuncture compared to either sham-control or non-acupuncture control. Baseline psychological distress showed small treatment moderating effects, and results for sex were inconsistent. There was no strong evidence that age or duration of pain influenced the response to acupuncture. DISCUSSION: Of 5 patient characteristics tested, we found only baseline severity of pain to potentially moderate the effect of acupuncture treatment. For clinical practice, the evidence from this analysis does not justify stratifying chronic pain patients into subgroups that should or should not receive acupuncture on the basis of these 5 characteristics. Future acupuncture trials should assess other potentially important effect moderators.
OBJECTIVES: To optimally select chronic painpatients for different treatments, as it is of interest to identify patient characteristics that might moderate treatment effect. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of possible moderators on the effect of acupuncture treatment using a large data set. METHODS: We used data from an individual patient data meta-analysis of high-quality randomized trials of acupuncture for chronic headache and migraine, osteoarthritis, and back, neck, and shoulder pain. Using meta-analytic trial-level and patient-level regression analyses, we explored the impact of 5 documented patient characteristics (patients' age at baseline, sex, pain duration, baseline pain severity and baseline psychological distress) on the effect of acupuncture. RESULTS: A total of 39 trials met the inclusion criteria: 25 use sham-acupuncture controls (n = 7097) and 25 non-acupuncture controls (n = 16,041). Of the 5 patient characteristics analyzed, only baseline pain severity was found to potentially moderate the treatment effect of acupuncture, with patients reporting more severe pain at baseline experiencing more benefit from acupuncture compared to either sham-control or non-acupuncture control. Baseline psychological distress showed small treatment moderating effects, and results for sex were inconsistent. There was no strong evidence that age or duration of pain influenced the response to acupuncture. DISCUSSION: Of 5 patient characteristics tested, we found only baseline severity of pain to potentially moderate the effect of acupuncture treatment. For clinical practice, the evidence from this analysis does not justify stratifying chronic painpatients into subgroups that should or should not receive acupuncture on the basis of these 5 characteristics. Future acupuncture trials should assess other potentially important effect moderators.
Authors: Sara T Brookes; Elise Whitely; Matthias Egger; George Davey Smith; Paul A Mulheran; Tim J Peters Journal: J Clin Epidemiol Date: 2004-03 Impact factor: 6.437
Authors: Klaus Linde; Claudia M Witt; Andrea Streng; Wolfgang Weidenhammer; Stefan Wagenpfeil; Benno Brinkhaus; Stefan N Willich; Dieter Melchart Journal: Pain Date: 2007-01-25 Impact factor: 6.961
Authors: Jorge Vas; Camila Méndez; Emilio Perea-Milla; Evelia Vega; María Dolores Panadero; José María León; Miguel Angel Borge; Olga Gaspar; Francisco Sánchez-Rodríguez; Inmaculada Aguilar; Rosario Jurado Journal: BMJ Date: 2004-10-19
Authors: J Vas; C Ortega; V Olmo; F Perez-Fernandez; L Hernandez; I Medina; J M Seminario; A Herrera; F Luna; E Perea-Milla; C Mendez; F Madrazo; C Jimenez; M A Ruiz; I Aguilar Journal: Rheumatology (Oxford) Date: 2008-04-10 Impact factor: 7.580
Authors: Karen J Sherman; Daniel C Cherkin; Laura Ichikawa; Andrew L Avins; William E Barlow; Partap S Khalsa; Richard A Deyo Journal: BMC Musculoskelet Disord Date: 2009-09-21 Impact factor: 2.362
Authors: Nadine E Foster; Emily A Vertosick; George Lewith; Klaus Linde; Hugh MacPherson; Karen J Sherman; Claudia M Witt; Andrew J Vickers Journal: Acupunct Med Date: 2020-06-22 Impact factor: 2.267
Authors: Jiang-Ti Kong; Chelcie Puetz; Lu Tian; Isaac Haynes; Eunyoung Lee; Randall S Stafford; Rachel Manber; Sean Mackey Journal: JAMA Netw Open Date: 2020-10-01