Acupuncture for Renal Colic?

Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH reviewing Kaynar M et al. Am J Emerg Med 2015 Jun.
Maybe it was regression to the mean or a placebo effect, but acupuncture seemed to help in this study from Turkey.

Acupuncture and sham acupuncture are known to be more effective than no intervention for some conditions, possibly due to the placebo effect or some other pathway. Turkish investigators conducted a randomized trial comparing acupuncture to medications in the treatment of renal colic.

One hundred twenty-one patients with renal colic were randomly assigned to receive intravenous acetaminophen (1 g/100 mL saline for 15 minutes), intramuscular diclofenac (75 mg), or acupuncture (in the bladder region). Pain was measured on a 10-point visual analog scale before treatment and 10, 30, 60, and 120 minutes after.

At baseline, mean pain scores were 9 in all three groups. In the acupuncture group, mean pain scores decreased to 4 after 10 minutes and remained steady thereafter. In the medication groups, mean pain scores decreased more slowly, but reached a lower level than in the acupuncture group — score of 2 to 3 — by 2 hours. Oddly, no patient received opioid medication.

CITATION(S):

Kaynar M et al. Comparison of the efficacy of diclofenac, acupuncture, and acetaminophen in the treatment of renal colic. Am J Emerg Med 2015 Jun; 33:749.