The International Journal of Medicine has published a series of studies on acupuncture in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis

recently, the results of a series of acupuncture treatments for knee osteoarthritis led by Professor Liu Xuanzhi of Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine were published in PAIN, the official journal of the International Association for pain Research (IASP), and Arthritis and Rheumatology, the official journal of the American Rheumatology Society (ACR).Knee osteoarthritis is the leading cause of chronic pain and disability in the elderly, affecting 16 per cent of the world's population. The financial burden of knee osteoarthritis is enormous, accounting for about 1.0%-2.5% of GDP. Worse, the situation will worsen as life expectancy increases and obesity becomes more prevalent. In the long run, acupuncture is seen as a potentially effective non-drug treatment for osteoarthritis. However, the results of a series of experiments that have been carried out in the past are contradictory and controversial. The causes of insistency may be related to insufficient acupuncture dose, with the frequency of acupuncture in most studies at 1-2 times/week and the frequency of acupuncture in domestic clinical practice at 3-5 times/week.The study, published in PAIN, included 60 KOA patients, showing that needle treatment 3 times a week was effective and could be used for rapid relief of pain and dysfunction during KOA's acute onset period, and 1 sting therapy per week could be used for maintenance treatment after KOA's acute onset, saving human, material and financial resources while ensuring the effectiveness of treatment. The Arthritis and Rheumatology study used acupuncture treatment three times a week as an intervention to conduct large-sample randomized controlled trials. The trial was jointly completed by 9 hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei."Based on many years of clinical experience, the team emphasized the deep puncture of the local acuity of the knee joint, the use of a hole and the use of a permeable hole, to the nose, inner knee eye, ququan, knee yangguan, a cave 5 local points as the main cave, while the knee osteoarthritis is divided into foot impotence, foot sun, foot yang and foot three yin evidence, according to the disease accumulated by the pulse to form a needle treatment program." Professor Liu said the study included 480 patients who were treated 24 times for 30 minutes of electronegation, millimeter needles or prosthetic needles for 8 weeks. Both the electric needle group and the millicard group treated 5 main holes and 3 distribution holes. The results showed that compared with fake needles, 3 times a week of electronegance treatment can significantly reduce knee pain, improve knee function, and the efficacy lasts for six months; Therefore, in clinical practice, electro-needle therapy can be recommended to treat knee osteoarthritis.Chinese medicine is difficult to obtain the recognition of Western scholars through evidence-based medicine because of its emphasis on individualized treatment. Following the characteristics of acupuncture itself, using rigorous randomized controlled trial design, in line with the methodological requirements of evidence-based medicine, the results were published in the top international journals PAIN and Arthritis and Rheumatology, not only for acupuncture treatment of knee osteoarthritis to provide internationally recognized high-quality evidence, but also for acupuncture clinical practice plays an important guiding role. (Global Network)