Trial reportPain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2017
Evoked Pressure Pain Sensitivity Is Associated with Differential Analgesic Response to Verum and Sham Acupuncture in Fibromyalgia.
Trial report in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06571110 (Analgesic Response to Opioids in Patients With Fibromyalgia After Conventional Acupuncture Versus Sham Acupuncture), which is not on this map. Cited by 35 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Analgesic Response to Opioids in Patients With Fibromyalgia After Conventional Acupuncture Versus Sham Acupuncture
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy of Dry Needling and Acupuncture in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Pressure pain threshold and perceived impact of pain differentially predict short-term and long-term pain reduction following acupuncture in fibromyalgia.Journal of integrative medicine · 2025Trial
- The Effect of Laser Biostimulation at Sensitized Acupoints on Chronic Pelvic Pain and Quality of Life in Women with Pelvic Inflammatory Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Trial
- Feasibility of Auricular Field Stimulation in Fibromyalgia: Evaluation by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Randomized Trial.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2021Trial
- Effect of Electroacupuncture vs Sham Treatment on Change in Pain Severity Among Adults With Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2020Trial
- CHRNA3⁺ nociceptors prime the cutaneous sensory interface to enhance electroacupuncture analgesia.Chinese medicine · 2026Article
- Brain sensory network activity underlies reduced nociceptive initiated and nociplastic pain via acupuncture in fibromyalgia.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Progress in diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease and clinical application and prospect of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Efficacy of Acupuncture in Patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis.Journal of pain research · 2026Review
- Therapeutic approach to fibromyalgia: a consensus statement on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment from the neuropathic pain special interest group of the Italian neurological society.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Acupuncture effects on emotional reactivity of youth with self-reported depressive symptoms.Psychoradiology · 2025Article
- Efficacy of Transcutaneous Electrical Acupoint Stimulation on Modulating Upper Extremity Sympathetic Skin Response in Alleviating Cancer Survivors With Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Propensity Score-Matched Cohort Study.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- Effects and predictors of intravenous lidocaine infusion for patients with fibromyalgia.PloS one · 2025Article
- Temporal summation does not predict the acupuncture response in patients with chronic non-specific low back pain.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Electroacupuncture for mild-to-moderate dry eye: study protocol for a multicentre, randomised, single-blind, sham-controlled trial.BMJ open · 2023Article
- An Interventional Response Phenotyping Study in Chronic Low Back Pain: Protocol for a Mechanistic Randomized Controlled Trial.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Effects of acupuncture at acupoints with lower versus higher pain threshold for knee osteoarthritis: a multicenter randomized controlled trial.Chinese medicine · 2022Article
- How to design high quality acupuncture trials-a consensus informed by evidence.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2022Article
- Methodological challenges in design and conduct of randomised controlled trials in acupuncture.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2022Article
- Commentary: Efficacy and safety of acupuncture on symptomatic improvement in primary Sjögren's syndrome: A randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveFibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition with few effective treatments. Many fibromyalgia patients seek acupuncture for analgesia; however, its efficacy is limited and not fully understood. This may be due to heterogeneous pathologies among participants in acupuncture clinical trials. We hypothesized that pressure pain tenderness would differentially classify treatment response to verum and sham acupuncture in fibromyalgia patients.
designBaseline pressure pain sensitivity at the thumbnail at baseline was used in linear mixed models as a modifier of differential treatment response to sham versus verum acupuncture. Similarly, needle-induced sensation was also analyzed to determine its differential effect of treatment on clinical pain. METHODS AND PATIENTS: A cohort of 114 fibromyalgia patients received baseline pressure pain testing and were randomized to either verum (N = 59) or sham (N = 55) acupuncture. Participants received treatments from once a week to three times a week, increasing in three-week blocks for a total of 18 treatments. Clinical pain was measured on a 101-point visual analog scale, and needle sensation was measured by questionnaire throughout the trial.
resultsParticipants who had higher pain pressure thresholds had greater reduction in clinical pain following verum acupuncture while participants who had lower pain pressure thresholds showed better analgesic response to sham acupuncture. Moreover, patients with lower pressure pain thresholds had exacerbated clinical pain following verum acupuncture. Similar relationships were observed for sensitivity to acupuncture needling.
conclusionsThese findings suggest that acupuncture efficacy in fibromyalgia may be underestimated and a more personalized treatment for fibromyalgia may also be possible.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.