German Randomized Acupuncture Trial for chronic shoulder pain (GRASP) - a pragmatic, controlled, patient-blinded, multi-centre trial in an outpatient care environment.
The German Randomized Acupuncture Trial for chronic shoulder pain (GRASP) comprised 424 outpatients with chronic shoulder pain (CSP) > or =6 weeks and an average pain score of VAS > or =50 mm, who were randomly assigned to receive Chinese acupuncture (verum), sham acupuncture (sham) or conventional conservative orthopaedic treatment (COT). The patients were blinded to the type of acupuncture and treated by 31 office-based orthopaedists trained in acupuncture; all received 15 treatments over 6 weeks. The 50% responder rate for pain was measured on a VAS 3 months after the end of treatment (primary endpoint) and directly after the end of the treatment (secondary endpoint).


RESULTS
In the ITT (n=424) analysis, percentages of responders for the primary endpoint were verum 65% (95% CI 56-74%) (n=100), sham 24% (95% CI 9-39%) (n=32), and COT 37% (95% CI 24-50%) (n=50); secondary endpoint: verum 68% (95% CI 58-77%) (n=92), sham 40% (95% CI 27-53%) (n=53), and COT 28% (95% CI 14-42%) (n=38). The results are significant for verum over sham and verum over COT (p<0.01) for both the primary and secondary endpoints. The PPP analysis of the primary (n=308) and secondary endpoints (n=360) yields similar responder results for verum over sham and verum over COT (p<0.01). Descriptive statistics showed greater improvement of shoulder mobility (abduction and arm-above-head test) for the verum group versus the control group immediately after treatment and after 3 months. The trial indicates that Chinese acupuncture is an effective alternative to conventional orthopaedic treatment for CSP.
Molsberger
Albrecht F
AF
Ruhr-University Bochum, Orthopaedic Surgery and Research, 44780 Bochum, Germany Orthopaedic Surgery, Dreifaltigkeits-Krankenhaus Cologne, 50933 Cologne, Germany Klinik Porta Westfalica, 32547 Bad Oeynhausen, Germany Department of Statistics in Medicine, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany Centre for Clinical Trials, University Hospital Münster, 48129 Münster, Germany.
Schneider
Thomas
T
Gotthardt
Hermann
H
Drabik
Attyla
A
D015669:Acupuncture Points; D015670:Acupuncture Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal / Q000494:pharmacology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004008:Diclofenac / Q000494:pharmacology; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008349:Manipulation, Orthopedic / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D010147:Pain Measurement; D020069:Shoulder Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal; D004008:Diclofenac