WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Acupuncture and electrotherapy might be effective in reducing and delaying opioid use, said an analysis of drug-free interventions to reduce pain after total knee replacement on Wednesday.
Tina Hernandez-Boussard of Stanford University and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 39 randomized clinical trials including 2,391 patients to evaluate the effectiveness of commonly used drug-free interventions for pain management after total knee arthroplasty.
The most commonly performed interventions included continuous passive motion (CPM), preoperative exercise, cryotherapy, electrotherapy, and acupuncture, according to their study published in the U.S. journal JAMA Surgery.
"This meta-analysis found moderate evidence that electrotherapy and acupuncture improved postoperative pain management and reduced opioid consumption," the researchers wrote in their paper.
However, there was very low-certainty evidence that cryotherapy reduced opioid consumption, but no evidence that it improves perceived pain, they said.
In addition, CPM and preoperative exercise do not help alleviate pain or reduce opioid consumption.
"As prescription opioid use is under national scrutiny and because surgery has been identified as an avenue for addiction, it is important to recognize effective alternatives to standard pharmacological therapy, which remains the first option for treatment," the researchers said.
"Our study provides modest but clinically significant evidence that acupuncture and electrotherapy can potentially reduce and delay opioid consumption," they concluded. "Evidence for other interventions, although limited by the quality of the underlying literature, had less support."
