Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture and cupping for fibromyalgia while incorporating patients’ preference into study design. Methods: The trial was registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01869712). One hundred participants with fibromyalgia were to be included in this study. Diagnosis of fibromyalgia was based on the American College of Rheumatology criteria. Before treatment, participants were interviewed for their preference toward acupuncture or cupping. Fifty participants with no preference were randomly assigned to one of the two groups and another 50 participants with strong preference to either acupuncture or cupping received what they choose. For acupuncture and cupping, the main acupoints used were tender points (Ashi). The treatment session was three times a week for 5 consecutive weeks with a follow -up period of 12 weeks. Outcome measures included patient expectation, satisfaction, pain intensity, quality of life, and depression assessment. Intention to treat analysis was employed. Results: Results of intention-to-treat analysis from current 56 participants (29 in cupping group and 27 in acupuncture group, whose baseline data were comparable) showed no difference of pain intensity (Visual Analogue Scale 4.16mm, 95%confidence interval -5.40mm to 13.72mm), quality of life (SF36 5.93, 95%confidence interval -7.89 to 19.75), and depression assessment (HAMD 0.42, 95%confidence interval -4.09 to 4.93) between groups after treatment. Similar results were got on patients expectation before treatment between groups (p>0.05), and no statistically difference was showed on satisfactory after treatment between groups (p=0.17, 59.6% in acupuncture group and 58.3% in cupping group reported satisfied with the treatment). Conclusion: The present results showed no difference of effectiveness between acupuncture and cupping therapy for treatment of fibromyalgia on relieving pain, reducing depression and improving quality of life. Hence, patients accepted acupuncture had a similar satisfactory as them who received cupping. Contact: Huijuan Cao, huijuancao327@hotmail.com
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