On 2016 Apr 29, Leigh Jackson commented:

The long and short of this review is that no good evidence could be found to show that acupuncture is effective for asthma in children.

Two studies showing possible evidence of slight benefit were found.

In one of these studies - Scheewe et al. - patients with bronchial asthma received drug therapy as well as traditional acupuncture. There was no sham control.

In the other trial - Stockert et al. - patients with intermittent or mild asthma received probiotic drops as well as laser acupuncture. Each treatment had a placebo control.

The evidence of benefit found in this review, such as it is, could conceivably be due to traditional or laser acupuncture or both; or to the other treatments or combinations of treatments; or in the case of Scheewe et al. simply to the placebo effect.

On the basis of the evidence examined in this review, what is now needed is not large-scale RCTs, but successful independently replicated RCTs of the different forms of acupuncture versus sham controls alone.

On 2016 Apr 29, Leigh Jackson commented:

The long and short of this review is that no good evidence could be found to show that acupuncture is effective for asthma in children.

Two studies showing possible evidence of slight benefit were found.

In one of these studies - Scheewe et al. - patients with bronchial asthma received drug therapy as well as traditional acupuncture. There was no sham control.

In the other trial - Stockert et al. - patients with intermittent or mild asthma received probiotic drops as well as laser acupuncture. Each treatment had a placebo control.

The evidence of benefit found in this review, such as it is, could conceivably be due to traditional or laser acupuncture or both; or to the other treatments or combinations of treatments; or in the case of Scheewe et al. simply to the placebo effect.

On the basis of the evidence examined in this review, what is now needed is not large-scale RCTs, but successful independently replicated RCTs of the different forms of acupuncture versus sham controls alone.