Studies find acupuncture safe when done skillfully

In one of the studies, both of which are published in the September 1st issue of the British Medical Journal, investigators calculated the number of side effects in over 34,000 procedures performed during a 4-week period by 574 professional acupuncturists.

Patients reported no serious effects, but they did report 43 minor side effects, according to Dr. Hugh MacPherson of the Foundation for Traditional Chinese Medicine in York, UK, and colleagues.

The most common side effects were severe nausea and fainting. Seven patients experienced an unexpected aggravation of symptoms, five had unacceptable pain and bruising and four suffered emotional or psychological reactions. In two patients, the practitioners failed to remove a needle.

In the second study, Dr. Adrian R. White, with the University of Exeter, UK, and colleagues performed a similar study with 78 practitioners who performed over 31,000 procedures between June 1998 and February 2000. Again, no serious side effects occurred, but the acupuncturists did report 43 ‘significant’ events, most often a forgotten or lost needle, fainting or worsening of symptoms, and 2,135 ‘minor’ events, most often bleeding and pain.

“While the risks of acupuncture cannot be discounted, it certainly seems, in skilled hands, one of the safer forms of medical intervention,” notes Dr. Charles Vincent, from University College London, in a related editorial. Study author MacPherson agrees. “Compared to drug treatments for equivalent conditions, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for chronic pain, acupuncture is a very safe therapy,” he said. “Statistically there is an adverse event rate of less than 1 serious event in 10,000 treatments,” he added.

But White, the author of the second study, notes that he was surprised because as many as 1% of patients were made worse for a short while after acupuncture. “One patient had a seizure–so anyone who has had any sort of seizure before should tell their acupuncturist before they have any treatment,” he said.

“Some practitioners do cause rather more bleeding and needle pain than others,” White said. “If you are considering having acupuncture, you should not only make sure that the acupuncturist is qualified…but you should also look for a personal recommendation, from someone who has been treated by them, or from a doctor who knows them,” he advised.