ArticleCureus2023
Efficacy of Dry Needling Versus Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation in Patients With Neck Pain Due to Myofascial Trigger Points: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Article in Cureus, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07015281 (Dry Needling With Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation + Exercises Verus Therapeutic Execises in Patients With Non-specific Chronic Neck Pain), which is not on this map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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.
Dry Needling With Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation + Exercises Verus Therapeutic Execises in Patients With Non-specific Chronic Neck Pain
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
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 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction Myofascial pain is defined as pain arising primarily in muscles and associated with multiple trigger points. Among the non-pharmacological methods, trigger point injection and electrotherapy are effective methods to treat myofascial pain syndrome. This study compares the effectiveness of dry needling (DN) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in reducing cervical pain intensity and improving cervical range of motion in patients with neck pain due to myofascial trigger points. Methods Fifty patients were enrolled and randomized into two groups. Patients in group A received dry needling, and those in group B received TENS. Patients were evaluated using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and Cervical Range of Motion (CROM) before the treatment and on days 14 and 28 after the treatment. The unpaired t-test was used to evaluate quantitative data, except for VAS, where the Mann-Whitney U test was used. All quantitative variables had a normal distribution with a standard deviation except for pain intensity (VAS), which deviated from the normal distribution. The significance level was set at a P-value=0.05. Results Both DN and TENS groups showed significant improvement in VAS, NDI, and CROM between days 0 and 28 (p=<0.001). The DN group showed greater improvements in pain intensity from day 0 to day 28 (p =<0.001). Between days 0 and 28, there was no discernible difference in NDI changes between the groups (p = 0.157 and p = 0.799, respectively). Mixed results were obtained for CROM, with significant improvement of cervical flexion in the dry needling group (p=<0.008) and significant improvement of cervical rotation to the painful side in the TENS group (<0.001). Conclusion Both dry needling and TENS are effective in reducing pain and improving NDI and CROM in patients with neck pain due to myofascial trigger points. However, as dry needling is more effective in pain reduction, a single session of dry needling is more beneficial and cost-effective as compared to multiple sessions of TENS.
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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.