Effectiveness of systemic acupuncture in the control of urinary incontinence following radical prostatectomy: a randomized clinical trial.
Mariana Ferreira Vaz Gontijo Bernardes, Luciana Regina Ferreira da Mata, Cissa Azevedo and 3 others
PMID 36165956WHAT IT FOUND
Adding acupuncture to pelvic floor training after radical prostatectomy produced lower measured urine leakage at four and eight weeks than training alone.
Both groups improved, so the training itself mattered.
Key findings
01Adding acupuncture to eight weekly pelvic floor muscle training sessions showed lower Pad-test urine leakage than pelvic floor muscle training alone at four and eight weeks.
02Both groups improved over time: Pad-test leakage fell from 62.69 g to 8.12 g with training alone and from 48.67 g to 1.33 g with acupuncture plus training.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 68 men were randomised, and the paper does not report how many were analysed after dropouts; the baseline table lists 31 in the control group and 32 in the intervention group. The trial was single-centre and open-label, so participants and staff knew the allocation, which can affect self-reported pad use. Men had to have preserved cognitive, walking, vision, hearing, and swallowing function and be available for nine weeks, so the result may not apply to men with greater medical or functional limitations. The sample was not stratified by baseline incontinence severity, and the baseline Pad-test means were 62.69 g in the control group and 48.67 g in the acupuncture group, with p = 0.326. The acupuncture protocol was fixed, while the paper notes that Traditional Chinese Medicine usually individualises points. The intervention group received acupuncture plus pelvic floor training, so the trial cannot show acupuncture alone works.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that acupuncture alone treated the incontinence. Every participant in the acupuncture group also received eight weekly pelvic floor muscle training sessions, and the control group received the same training, so the comparison is acupuncture plus training versus training alone.