ArticleJournal of clinical medicine2020
Short-Term Effects of PENS versus Dry Needling in Subjects with Unilateral Mechanical Neck Pain and Active Myofascial Trigger Points in Levator Scapulae Muscle: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Article in Journal of clinical medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06459804 (Effects of Electro Dry Needling Versus Dry Needling on Pain, Muscle Strength, and Range of Motion in Patients With Levator Scapulae Syndrome), which is not on this map. Cited by 13 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.
Effects of Electro Dry Needling Versus Dry Needling on Pain, Muscle Strength, and Range of Motion in Patients With Levator Scapulae Syndrome
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of Dry Needling in Improving Pain and Function in Comparison with Other Techniques in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Pain research & management · 2023Pooled it
- Dry needling in active or latent trigger point in patients with neck pain: a randomized clinical trial.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Rate and maintenance of improvement of myofascial pain with dry needling alone vs. dry needling with intramuscular electrical stimulation: a randomized controlled trial.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2021Trial
- Effectiveness of Percutaneous Needle Electrolysis (PNE) and Intramuscular Electrical Stimulation (IMES) in the Management of Myofascial Pain Syndrome and Tendinopathies: A Systematic Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Clinical Effectiveness of Dry Needling on Myofascial Trigger Points in Horses: A Prospective Algometric Controlled Study.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of intramuscular electrical stimulation using conventional and inverse electrode placement methods on pressure pain threshold and electromyographic activity of the upper trapezius muscle with myofascial trigger points: a randomized clinical trial.The Korean journal of pain · 2025Article
- Research Trends in Dry Needling for Neck Pain Treatment: A Bibliometric Analysis.Journal of chiropractic humanities · 2024Review
- Article
- Intramuscular Electrical Stimulation to Trigger Points: Insights into Mechanisms and Clinical Applications-A Scoping Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Article
- A scoping review of the contralateral effects of unilateral peripheral stimulation on neuromuscular function.PloS one · 2022Article
- Needling Interventions for the Management of Musculoskeletal Pain Syndromes.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Article
- Effectiveness of Dry Needling for Myofascial Trigger Points Associated with Neck Pain Symptoms: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Procedures such as dry needling (DN) or percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (PENS) are commonly proposed for the treatment of myofascial trigger points (MTrP). The aim of the present study is to investigate if PENS is more effective than DN in the short term in subjects with mechanical neck pain. This was an evaluator-blinded randomized controlled trial. Subjects were recruited through announcements and randomly allocated into DN or PENS groups. Pain intensity, disability, pressure pain threshold (PPT), range of motion (ROM), and side-bending strength were measured. The analyses included mixed-model analyses of variance and pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni correction. The final sample was composed of 44 subjects (22 per group). Both groups showed improvements in pain intensity (η
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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.