title: Acupuncture for gouty arthritis: a concise report of a systematic and meta-analysis approach.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the effectiveness of acupuncture as complementary therapy for gouty arthritis from randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
  
  
  METHODS
  Five electronic databases, including English and Chinese, were systematically searched until August 2012. All RCTs involving acupuncture in combination with conventional therapy for gouty arthritis were included.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Ten RCTs involving 852 gouty arthritis patients were systematically reviewed. Among them six studies of 512 patients reported a significant decrease in uric acid in the treatment group compared with a control group, while two studies of 120 patients reported no significant decrease in uric acid in the treatment group compared with the control group. The remaining four studies of 380 patients reported a significant decrease in visual analogue scale score in the treatment group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of the studies included here suggest that acupuncture is efficacious as complementary therapy for gouty arthritis patients. More research and well-designed, rigorous and large clinical trials are necessary to address these issues.
authors: Department of East-West Medicine, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Dongdaemun-Gu, Seoul 130-701, South Korea.
authors: Won Bock
authors: WB
authors: Lee
authors: Seok Hyeon
authors: SH
authors: Woo
authors: Byung-Il
authors: BI
authors: Min
authors: Seung-Hun
authors: SH
authors: Cho
mesh_terms: D015670:Acupuncture Therapy; D015210:Arthritis, Gouty / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D010147:Pain Measurement; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014527:Uric Acid / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D014527:Uric Acid
keywords: acupuncture; arthritis; concise report; gout; gouty; meta-analysis; randomized controlled trials; systemic review