NCT03489681

Acupuncture Treatment for Chronic Sciatica: the Neuroimaging Pain-network Study

Status unknown NA Last updated 28 January 2019

What this trial tests

NA trial testing acupuncture in Therapy, Acupuncture in 80 participants. Status unknown.

Timeline

1 August 2018

Primary endpoint
31 December 2019

31 January 2020

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan
Phase	NA
Status	Status unknown
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	80
Start date	1 August 2018
Primary completion	31 December 2019
Estimated completion	31 January 2020
Sites	1 location across Taiwan

Drugs / interventions tested

• acupuncture — full drug profile →

Conditions studied

• Therapy, Acupuncture — all drugs for Therapy, Acupuncture →
• MRI, Functional — all drugs for MRI, Functional →

Sponsor

Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan

Who can join

Adults 35 to 70, any sex, with Therapy, Acupuncture or MRI, Functional. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Sciatica is a common pain disorder in the neurological clinic that typically present as low back or gluteal pain and may radiate to one leg with motor or sensory complaint. Sciatica has drawn more attention worldwide as a public health issue for its pain disability, high prevalence and significant medical and economic burden. A meta-analysis of sciatica treatment revealed discectomy, epidural injections, non-opioid analgesics, and acupuncture might relieve pain. However, the central effect of acupuncture-induced analgesia and its functional connectivities in various brain region remain unclear. Besides, the number of acupoints selection and its correlation in functional connectivity also need to be discussed. This clinical trial would collect the sciatica subjects assign by intent to treat, divided to acupuncture and non-acupuncture herbal control group. The treatment of acupuncture assigns randomized as high dose and low dose acupuncture group. The acupuncture will perform two times a week for four weeks. The primary outcomes are visual analog scale for pain and sciatica bothersomeness index; the secondary outcomes are Roland's disability questionnaire for sciatica, WHOQOL, and traditional Chinese medical constitutional scale. The functional magnetic resonance imaging scan would apply at the baseline and after four weeks' treatment. This study aims to explore the model of DMN in sciatica patients; it's central effect in different stimulation modality and to investigate the mechanism of the long-lasting, sustained impact in different acupuncture dosage.

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Therapeutic Efficacy and the Impact of the "Dose" Effect of Acupuncture to Treat Sciatica: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study.
   Liu CH, Kung YY, Lin CL, Yang JL, et al · · 2019 · cited 13× · PMID 32021387 · DOI 10.2147/jpr.s210672