Key result
True acupuncture improves dyspnea versus sham or standard care alone in hospitalized AECOPD patients.
Why the study?
Acupuncture improves dyspnea in COPD, but its efficacy and safety had not been tested in acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Does true acupuncture added to standard of care improve dyspnea in inpatients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?
RCT (n=72)
Double-blind
Randomized
No
Does true acupuncture added to standard of care improve dyspnea in inpatients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?
p-value: p=0.014
Acupuncture added to standard of care significantly improves dyspnea intensity in inpatients hospitalized for acute exacerbations of COPD.
Supports adding true acupuncture to AECOPD care for dyspnea; confirms superiority over sham in this RCT.
BACKGROUND: Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) are a healthcare burden. Acupuncture improves dyspnea in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but, to the best of our knowledge, has not been tested in AECOPD. Here, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of true acupuncture added to standard of care (SOC), as compared with both sham procedure plus SOC and SOC only, for the treatment of AECOPD among inpatients. METHODS: This double-blinded randomized sham-controlled trial was set in a tertiary hospital in Israel. Patients with a clinical diagnosis of AECOPD were assigned to true acupuncture with SOC, sham procedure with SOC or SOC only. The primary outcome was dyspnea improvement as measured daily by the validated modified Borg (mBorg) scale. Secondary outcomes included improvement of other patient-reported outcomes and physiologic features, as well as duration of hospitalization and treatment failure. Acupuncture-related side effects were evaluated by the validated Acup-AE questionnaire. RESULTS: Seventy-two patients were randomized: 26 to acupuncture treatment, 24 to sham and 22 to SOC only arms. Baseline characteristics were similar in the three groups. A statistically significant difference in dyspnea intensity was found from the first day of evaluation after treatment (p = 0.014) until day 3 after treatment. Similar results were found for sputum production, but no statistical significance was found when comparing physiologic features between the three arms. Acupuncture was not associated with adverse events. CONCLUSION: Acupuncture seems to be efficacious in the treatment of AECOPD among inpatients hospitalized in internal medicine departments. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03398213 (ClinicalTrials.gov).
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Levy et al. (2022) conducted an RCT in Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) (n=72). True acupuncture added to standard of care (SOC) vs. Sham procedure plus SOC and SOC only was evaluated on Dyspnea improvement as measured daily by the validated modified Borg (mBorg) scale (p=0.014). True acupuncture added to standard of care significantly improved dyspnea intensity compared to sham or standard care alone in hospitalized AECOPD patients (p=0.014).
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