ArticlePloS one2018
Decreased risk of pneumonia in stroke patients receiving acupuncture: A nationwide matched-pair retrospective cohort study.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Knowledge domain and trends in acupuncture for stroke research based on bibliometric analysis.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- The potential effects of traditional Chinese medicine on the outcomes after breast cancer surgery: a large population-based study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Article
- Acupuncture for inpatients with ischemic stroke in Southern Taiwan: real-world data.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Article
- Effect of Acupuncture on Pneumonia Risk in Stroke Patients using Proton Pump Inhibitors: A Retrospective Case-Control Study.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- The effect of acupuncture on reducing postoperative complications in fracture patients: A retrospective analysis using the TriNetX database.Bone reports · 2025Article
- Efficacy of acupuncture in reducing accidental injury risk in stroke patients: A national-scale cohort study.Heliyon · 2024Article
- A Time-Dependent Analysis of Association between Acupuncture Utilization and the Prognosis of Ischemic Stroke.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Efficacy of Acupuncture Treatment for Incidence of Poststroke Comorbidities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Nationalized Cohort Studies.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2022Article
- Review
- Acupuncture Reduces the Risk of Dysphagia in Stroke Patients: A Propensity Score-Matched Cohort Study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAcupuncture treatment is common among stroke patients, but there is limited information available on whether acupuncture effectively prevents post-stroke pneumonia. The aim of this study was to analyze the differential risk of pneumonia after stroke between patients who did and did not receive acupuncture after discharge.
methodsWe used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database to conduct a retrospective cohort study using propensity score matched-pairs of new stroke patients in 2000-2004 who did and did not receive acupuncture post-stroke. Both cohorts were followed up until the end of 2009 for new-onset pneumonia. After correcting for immortal time bias, the incidence and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of pneumonia associated with acupuncture use were calculated using multivariate Cox proportional hazard models.
resultsOverall, 12557 stroke patients with 12557 paired controls were included in the analysis; pneumonia was diagnosed in 6796 (27.1%). Stroke patients receiving acupuncture had a lower incidence of pneumonia than those without acupuncture (53.4 vs. 58.9 per 1000 person-years), with an adjusted HR of 0.86 (95% CI 0.82-0.90). The association between pneumonia risk and acupuncture use was significant in men (HR 0.92, 95% CI 0.86-0.98) and women (HR 0.79, 95% 0.70-0.82) and was also observed in every age group from 20-79 years.
conclusionStroke patients receiving acupuncture had a lower risk of pneumonia than those who did not. Further randomized control studies are needed to validate the protective effect of acupuncture on the risk of pneumonia among stroke patients.
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