Acupuncture can significantly improve symptoms in Meniere’s disease, Study finds

Meniere’s disease (MD) is an
idiopathic chronic inner ear disease characterized by vertigo, nausea,
vomiting, hearing loss, tinnitus, or aural fullness. It affects the quality of
life due to its impact on the patients’ physical and mental health. There is a
lot of ambiguity on the etiopathogenesis and the management of MD. Despite the
efficacy of medications, additional and alternative treatment modalities are
necessary for the management of MD. Hence, researchers from the Nanjing
University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China, conducted a systematic review of
the efficacy of acupuncture treatment for MD.

The systematic review collected
data from eight databases and focused on studies evaluating the efficacy of
acupuncture on MD. Researchers used the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 tool to
assess the risk of bias in the randomized controlled trials. RevMan 5.4 and
Stata 16.0 software were used to conduct the meta-analysis.

Findings:

• The review included six studies in total.
• There were two groups: the treatment group and the
  control group.
• The treatment group received acupuncture alone or
  a combination of acupuncture with Western medicine.
• The control group was treated with Western
  medicine alone.
• The treatment group was significantly better
  than the control group in terms of efficacy rate
• The treatment group was found to have significantly
  improved scores on the dizziness handicap inventory (DHI), tinnitus handicap
  inventory (THI), stuffy ear visual analog scale (VAS), and pure tone audiometry
  score.

Limitations:

Despite these significant
improvements, certain limitations remained, such as inadequate blinding
procedures, inconsistent outcome measures, and variations in clinical
interventions. The variations were a selection of acupoints, acupuncture
sessions, and therapist techniques.

The study concluded that
acupuncture can effectively reduce MD and its symptoms of vertigo, tinnitus,
ear fullness, and hearing loss. However, the researchers highlighted the
necessity of rigorous and long-term studies that can address the methodological
shortcomings of the present studies. Further well-designed trials with
long-term follow-ups have to be carried out to evaluate the efficacy and safety
of acupuncture in MD.

Further reading: Efficacy and
safety of acupuncture in the treatment of Meniere’s disease: A systematic
review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1463821