Acupuncture compares favourably with drug treatment for chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS), according to Chinese authors. Network meta-analysis, which allows the comparative effectiveness of interventions that have not been directly evaluated against each other to be calculated, was carried out on data from twelve trials involving 1203 participants. The results showed that, compared with placebo, electro-acupuncture was the most efficacious in improving total symptom scores, followed by manual acupuncture, dual drug therapy (a combination antibiotics and alpha-blockers), antibiotics, sham acupuncture and alpha-blockers. In addition, the incidence of adverse events for acupuncture was relatively rare compared with the other treatments.
Network Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Acupuncture, Alpha-blockers and Antibiotics on Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome. Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 19;6:35737.
Quelle: www.jcm.co.uk