Qi Spot

Acupuncture is only “human”.  It doesn’t always work.  In this research, it doesn’t seem to work for post operative ileus.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/176167.php

A research article published on January 7, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. In this prospective randomized clinical trial, the authors examined if acupuncture could prevent prolonged postoperative ileus (PPOI) after intraperitoneal surgery among patients with colon cancer in Shanghai, China. Acupuncture did not prevent PPOI in this population. Subset analyses in patients who developed PPOI also suggested acupuncture was not useful in this setting to treat PPOI once it developed.

The study was part of a unique collaboration between researchers in the United States at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas and China at the Fudan University Cancer Hospital in Shanghai. Only one previous randomized trial, conducted in the United States, has examined the use of acupuncture to prevent PPOI in cancer patients. According to Meng and colleagues, standard postoperative care is very different in China than in the United States, and some of these treatment differences could play an important role in postoperative gastrointestinal motility and development of complications such as prolonged ileus. The authors state that future studies examining the use of acupuncture to prevent or treat PPOI should include assessment of activity, diet, and postoperative medication for pain control.

This study was funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute. The Principal Investigator of the international collaboration, Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, stated the focus of the International Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for Cancer is to study TCM within its traditional context. Although the study was a negative trial, it is consistent with a similar trial conducted in the United States. We learned from this study that the specific use of certain acupuncture points in combination with standard postoperative care in China had no effect on PPOI, but it also demonstrated that we can conduct rigorous multinational research to examine TCM for cancer. Conducting rigorous research on TCM is an important step towards understanding the potential efficacy and mechanisms of many ancient therapies such as acupuncture.

Reference: Meng ZQ, Garcia MK, Chiang JS, Peng HT, Shi YQ, Fu J, Liu LM, Liao ZX, Zhang Y, Bei WY, Thornton B, Palmer JL, McQuade J, Cohen L. Electro-acupuncture to prevent prolonged postoperative ileus: A randomized clinical trial. World J Gastroenterol 2010; 16(1): 104-111 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/16/104.asp

Source: Lin Tian
World Journal of Gastroenterology

I assume they used a standard set of points for everything.  Nonetheless, this shows that acupuncture, like any other valid mode of treatment, has limitations.  It can’t cure everything.  While skeptics will take this to question it’s efficacy for anything, the proper attitude should be just the opposite: it works for some, doesn’t work for others.

Research is important to determine which is which.

Like anti-cancer drugs working by killing people faster *ahem*.

Some questions though: what were the specific operative procedures?  Did they involve cutting any meridians?  What were the diseases present indicating surgery?  These are all important in setting up a study.  Some procedures end up cutting meridians, obviously affecting acupuncture.  Also, what anesthetics were involved?  Naloxone has been shown to block acupuncture’s beneficial effects.