Acupuncture for Essential Hypertension: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Sham-Controlled Clinical Trials

Table 1

Characteristics of the RCTs selected for the meta-analysis.

Characteristics	Macklin et al. [11]	Kim et al. [3]	Flachskampf et al. [10]	Yin et al. [9]
Country	United States	Republic of Korea	Germany	Republic of Korea
Mean age (years) (Acu/Con)	57 (IND)-56 (STD)/53	52/52	59/58	52/54
Hypertension grades	1-2	1-2	1-2	1-2
Design	Prospective, double-blind, randomized, parallel group	Randomized, double-blind	Single-blind, randomized	Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled
Style	IND/STD	IND	IND	IND
Acupuncture treatment	IND (𝑛=64)/STD (𝑛=64) consisted of ≤12 generally twice a week 30 min acupuncture sessions provided over 6 to 8 weeks. Follow-up at 10 weeks, and 6 and 12 months	Acupuncture twice a week for 8 weeks. Follow-up at 8 weeks (𝑛=17)	Acupuncture 5 times weekly for first 2 weeks, and then 3 times weekly for following 5 weeks. Follow-up at 3 day, and 3 and 6 months (𝑛=72)	Acupuncture once every 3-4 days for 8 weeks. Follow-up at 4 weeks and 6 weeks (𝑛=15)
Sham acupuncture treatment	Invasive sham acupuncture (acupuncture at nonacupuncture points) (𝑛=64)	Sham acupuncture (acupuncture at nonacupuncture points superficially and bilaterally) (𝑛=16)	Sham acupuncture (acupuncture points without relevance for lowering BP) (𝑛=68)	Sham acupuncture (acupuncture superficially under the skin) (𝑛=15)
Outcome measures	BP at 10 weeks	24 h ambulatory BP at 8 weeks	(1) 24 h BP at 6 weeks; (2) Daytime BP at 6 weeks; (3) Nighttime BP at 6 weeks; (4) Peak exercises (exercise at the maximal comparable workload) BP at 6 weeks	BP at 8 weeks
Antihypertensive medication	No	No	Yes	Yes
Jadad score	5	5	4	5

RCTs: randomized controlled trials; Acu: acupuncture group; Con: control group (sham acupuncture group); IND: individualized acupuncture; STD: standardized acupuncture; BP: blood pressure.