Volume 188 - Issue 1
Acupuncture for persistent allergic rhinitis: a randomised, sham-controlled trial
Authors: Charlie C L Xue and David F Story
Med J Aust 2008; 188 (1): 64. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2008.tb01520.x
Published online: 7 January 2008
Published online: 7 January 2008
In reply: Ernst is concerned about the sham acupuncture procedure used in our trial.1 Although not universally agreed, the sham/placebo control we adopted has been described as best practice.2,3 The assumption that, without de-qi, participants would not be blinded is not supported by the literature. In fact, a sham procedure without de-qi was used in a recent trial reported by Ernst and colleagues on acupuncture for subacute stroke rehabilitation.4 In that study, as in ours, to increase the credibility of blinding, participants with previous experience of acupuncture were excluded, and those assessing the outcomes of treatment were blinded.
With regard to previous randomised controlled trials of acupuncture for adults with persistent allergic rhinitis in the English medical literature, Ernst failed to distinguish between seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR) and persistent allergic rhinitis (PAR).5 Of the six studies included in his review,5 five were on SAR, and the sixth, which was cited in our report (reference 14), was on children with PAR. These reports, therefore, are not inconsistent with our findings.
References
- Xue CCL, An X, Cheung TP, et al. Acupuncture for persistent allergic rhinitis: a randomised, sham-controlled trial. Med J Aust 2007; 187: 337-341.
- Dincer F, Linde K. Sham interventions in randomized clinical trials of acupuncture — a review. Complement Ther Med 2003; 11: 235-242. 0_CBBIIDCH
- Witt C, Brinkhaus B, Jena S, et al. Acupuncture in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a randomised trial. Lancet 2005; 366: 136-143. 0_i1091824
- Park J, White AR, James MA, et al. Acupuncture for subacute stroke rehabilitation: a sham-controlled, subject- and assessor-blind randomised trial. Arch Intern Med 2005; 165: 2026-2031. 0_CBBHBDDD
- Ernst E, Pittler MH, Wider B, Boddy K. The desktop guide to complementary and alternative medicine. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Elsevier Mosby, 2006. 0_i1091829