ABSTRACT
The meta-analytic method including a criteria-based assessment and a uniformly defined effective rate of clinical studies was used to study the clinical effect of acupuncture. This method of analysis can be used for a clinical study including case-series study. A criteria-based assessment may reveal the generality and lack of bias in a clinical study and the uniformly defined effective rate represents the general effectiveness led by the study.<BR>We tried to analyze the clinical effect of acupuncture on migraine headache. As a result of analyzing to 16 reports of acupuncture treatment for migraine headache, the criteria-based assessments were widely distributed from 3 to 17 out of 20 points. In its distribution, the 4 reports designed by the randomized controlled trial scored 13, 16, 16 and 17 points, those of 2 prospective clinical studies scored 10 and 17 points, and those of 10 case-studies all scored less than 13 points.<BR>As for the uniformly defined effective rate (%) in clinical studies, the average of the reports was 77.8% (its 95% confidence interval ranged from 68.2-86.0 %) and was much higher than the placebo effective rate of mock TENS (30-35%).<BR>Considering the result of 4 randomized controlled trials, this meta-analytic result suggests the high efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of migraine headache.
