Dry needling of the gluteus-medius muscle, combined with standard care, for chronic low back pain - a pilot randomized sham-controlled trial.
Gali Dar, Alon Goldberg
PMID 39954045WHAT IT FOUND
Adding dry needling to the gluteus medius to standard exercise and sham needling reduced pain more than sham in chronic low back pain.
Pain dropped by 4.6 points versus 2.0 on a 0-10 scale. This pilot suggests benefit but needs larger trials.
Key findings
01The dry needling group showed a significantly greater reduction in pain compared to the sham group.
02Participants with moderate disability showed significantly better improvement in forward flexion distance and disability scores compared to controls.
03There was no significant difference between groups in the participants' global rating of change.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Very small sample size (20 completed) limits the reliability of the findings. The therapist administering the treatment and measuring outcomes was not blinded, which could introduce bias. The study did not record the total number of needles used per session, making it difficult to replicate the exact dose. Sham needling may still produce some physiological analgesic effects through skin stimulation, potentially underestimating the true effect of dry needling. Results were not adjusted for multiple testing, increasing the risk of false-positive findings.
Declared interests
The authors reported no funding associated with the work.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume dry needling is superior to standard care alone. The control group received both exercises and sham needling, so the study only shows that adding real dry needling to this multimodal approach reduced pain more than adding sham. It does not isolate the effect of dry needling from the exercises.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →