BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.38512.405440.8F (published 29 July 2005)

PAPERS

Acupuncture in patients with tension-type headache: randomised controlled trial

Dieter Melchart ¹, Andrea Streng ¹, Andrea Hoppe ¹, Benno Brinkhaus ², Claudia Witt ², Stefan Wagenpfeil ³, Volker Pfaffenrath ⁴, Michael Hammes ⁵, Josef Hummelsberger ⁴, Dominik Irnich ⁶, Wolfgang Weidenhammer ¹, Stefan N Willich ², Klaus Linde ^1*, Dieter Melchart ⁷

¹ Centre for Complementary Medicine Research, Department of Internal Medicine II, Technische Universität München, Kaiserstr 9, 80801 Munich, Germany
² Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics, Charité University Medical Centre, Berlin, Germany
³ Institute of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, Technische Universität München
⁴ Private practice, Munich
⁵ Department of Neurology, Technische Universität München
⁶ Department of Anesthesiology, University of Munich, Munich
⁷ Division of Complementary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland

^* Correspondence to: Klaus.Linde{at}lrz.tu-muenchen.de.

Objective To investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture compared with minimal acupuncture and with no acupuncture in patients with tension-type headache.

Design Three armed randomised controlled multicentre trial.

Setting 28 outpatient centres in Germany.

Participants 270 patients (74% women, mean age 43 (SD 13) years) with episodic or chronic tension-type headache.

Interventions Acupuncture, minimal acupuncture (superficial needling at non-acupuncture points), or waiting list control. Acupuncture and minimal acupuncture were administered by specialised physicians and consisted of 12 sessions per patient over eight weeks.

Main outcome measure Difference in numbers of days with headache between the four weeks before randomisation and weeks 9-12 after randomisation, as recorded by participants in headache diaries.

Results The number of days with headache decreased by 7.2 (SD 6.5) days in the acupuncture group compared with 6.6 (SD 6.0) days in the minimal acupuncture group and 1.5 (SD 3.7) days in the waiting list group (difference: acupuncture v minimal acupuncture, 0.6 days, 95% confidence interval -1.5 to 2.6 days, P=0.58; acupuncture v waiting list, 5.7 days, 3.9 to 7.5 days, P<0.001). The proportion of responders (at least 50% reduction in days with headache) was 46% in the acupuncture group, 35% in the minimal acupuncture group, and 4% in the waiting list group.

Conclusions The acupuncture intervention investigated in this trial was more effective than no treatment but not significantly more effective than minimal acupuncture for the treatment of tension-type headache.

Trial registration number ISRCTN9737659.

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(Accepted 27 May 2005)

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