Evidence on acupuncture therapies is underused in clinical practice and health policy

BMJ. 2022 Feb 25:376:e067475. doi: 10.1136/bmj-2021-067475.

Liming Lu¹, Yuqing Zhang^{2

3

4

5}, Xiaorong Tang¹, Shuqi Ge⁶, Hao Wen⁷, Jingchun Zeng⁸, Lai Wang⁹, Zhao Zeng¹⁰, Gabriel Rada¹¹, Camila Ávila¹², Camilo Vergara¹², Yuyuan Tang¹, Peiming Zhang¹, Rouhao Chen¹, Yu Dong¹, Xiaojing Wei¹, Wen Luo⁹, Lin Wang¹, Gordon Guyatt³, Chunzhi Tang¹, Nenggui Xu¹³

¹ South China Research Center for Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Medical College of Acu-Moxi and Rehabilitation, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
² CEBIM (Center for Evidence Based Integrative Medicine)-Clarity Collaboration, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Nottingham Ningbo GRADE Center, The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.
⁶ Department of Rehabilitation, Zhuhai Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, ZhuHai, China.
⁷ Department of Neurology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁸ Department of Acupuncture, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
⁹ School of Medical Information Engineering, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁰ Library of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
¹¹ Centro Evidencia UC, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
¹² Epistemonikos Foundation, Providencia, Santiago, Chile.
¹³ South China Research Center for Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Medical College of Acu-Moxi and Rehabilitation, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China ngxu8018@163.com.

Abstract

Nenggui Xu and colleagues call for more effective evidence dissemination of and research into promising acupuncture therapies