Korean J Pain.  2013 Jan;26(1):46-50. 10.3344/kjp.2013.26.1.46.

The Effect of Acupuncture on Relieving Pain after Inguinal Surgeries

• Taghavi R
• Tabasi KT
• Mogharabian N
• Asadpour A
• Golchian A
• Mohamadi S
• Kabiri AA

• KMID: 1779023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3344/kjp.2013.26.1.46

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Postoperative pain is one of the most prevalent and bothersome issues found in the surgical department. Nowadays, there are various methods of acupuncture used for relieving pain without the complications found in some routine postoperative analgesics. These methods could be especially useful for high risk patients prone to complications from analgesics, such as transplantation recipients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of electro-acupuncture on postoperative pain control after inguinal surgeries.
METHODS
Ninety male patients, who were referred to our department with indications of inguinal surgery, were included in the study and randomly divided into two groups, such as acupuncture and control. We used electro-acupuncture for the acupuncture group and no actual acupuncture (but placed needle electrodes similar to the acupuncture group) for the control group. Postoperative pain was quantified by a blind observer in both groups using a visual analogue scale (VAS) standard score before being compared.
RESULTS
Pain intensity and analgesic use were significantly higher in the control group (P < 0.05). In the acupuncture group, the VAS pain scores were significantly lower than the control group at 0.5, 1 and 2 hours post operation. When the opioid related side effects were compared for each group, the results showed that the number of subjects who experienced dizziness in the acupuncture group was significantly lower than the control group (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
Acupuncture in patients, after inguinal surgery, can reduce the need of analgesics, which also directly reduces the complications that may occur when analgesics are used in relieving pain postoperatively.

Keyword

analgesics; electro-acupuncture; inguinal surgery; postoperative pain

MeSH Terms

Acupuncture
Analgesics
Dizziness
Electrodes
Humans
Male
Needles
Pain, Postoperative
Transplants
Analgesics

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Comparison of the mean VAS score between the groups of the study. The VAS score was significantly lower in the acupuncture group than the control group. The boxes are interquatile ranges; thick lines are medians and error bars are 10th and 90th percentiles. *P < 0.05 compared with the control group.

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