Why the study?
Slow flow/no-reflow complicates up to 44% of PCIs for AMI, worsening prognosis, and clinical evidence for electroacupuncture mitigating this complication is limited.
Does intraoperative electroacupuncture reduce the incidence of slow flow/no-reflow in patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention?
Population
60 AMI patients undergoing PCI
Comparison
PCI with electroacupuncture vs PCI alone
Design
Single-center randomized assessor-blinded pilot trial
Follow-up
30 days
Key result
Electroacupuncture reduced the incidence of slow flow/no-reflow to 6.7% compared to 26.7% in the control group, yielding a risk ratio of 0.2.
Authors
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Intraoperative electroacupuncture may reduce no-reflow in AMI PCI; leaves open routine adoption pending larger sham-controlled trials.
RCT (n=60)
Assessor-blinded
1:1
No
Does intraoperative electroacupuncture reduce the incidence of slow flow/no-reflow in patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention?
Effect estimate: RR 0.2 (95% CI 0.0-0.4)
Absolute Event Rate: 6.7% vs 26.7%
p-value: p=.04
Intraoperative electroacupuncture during PCI for acute myocardial infarction is feasible and may reduce the incidence of slow flow/no-reflow and early inflammation, warranting larger sham-controlled trials.
Wei et al. (2026) conducted an RCT in acute myocardial infarction (n=60). electroacupuncture vs. PCI alone was evaluated on incidence of slow flow/no-reflow (SF-NR) (RR 0.2, 95% CI 0.0-0.4, p=.04). Electroacupuncture reduced the incidence of slow flow/no-reflow to 6.7% compared to 26.7% in the control group, yielding a risk ratio of 0.2.
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