The effect of acupuncture/dry needling on cervical pain : an umbrella review

Abstract

Cervical pain is a common occurrence in the general population, from blue collar workers to even students that spend most of their times sitting and studying. The main aim of this umbrella review is to investigate if acupuncture/DN is an adequate analgesic modality for individuals that suffer from cervical pain. Acupuncture/DN (including electroacupuncture) was compared to any intervention active or inactive with the main outcome being pain intensity. Seven databases were utilised to conduct an electronic search, with the year of publication being set “from 2010-2022”. 1,970 articles matched the criteria, these were screened and revised by title and abstract and seventeen systematic reviews were included in this umbrella review. The AMSTAR-II quality assessment tool was utilised in order to critically appraise the systematic reviews whilst data extraction sheets were used to extract information from said reviews in a standardised manner. A total of 185 different RCTs were evaluated with 134 of them being mentioned once, 32 being mentioned twice, 5 being mentioned three times, 2 being mentioned four times and 12 being mentioned more than five times. The Graphical Representation of Overlap for OVEreviews (GROOVE) approach was used to calculate the overall % overlap present between all the systematic reviews, with the largest percentage being 52.4%. Furthermore, all the studies were grouped into three main types of neck pain; chronic neck pain, neck pain and myofascial trigger points. The results yielded concluded that acupuncture/DN was an effective analgesic modality for treating cervical pain. However, it was also noted that combination therapy had a superior analgesic effect and each type of neck pain warranted a different type of modality in the combination therapy. Further research regarding the effect of DN/acupuncture on different aetiologies of neck pain is recommended.