Effectiveness of Electroacupuncture for Patients with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is a term that applies to symptoms such as persistent or recurring low back pain, paresthesia, sciatica, or numbness after spine surgery. Electroacupuncture (EA) has been reported to have excellent analgesic effects although there have been no systematic reviews on the effects of EA on FBSS. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of EA on FBSS was conducted. Eight databases were searched for studies that used EA for FBSS and 7 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. RCTs of EA as combination therapy for FBSS compared with conventional treatment demonstrated improvement in the level of pain, lumbar functional scale scores, and quality of life. However, meta-analysis showed that reduction in pain was not statistically significant, while evaluation of lumbar function significantly improved, although the quality of evidence in the RCTs was generally low. RCTs comparing EA alone with conventional treatment demonstrated an improved level of pain, lumbar function, and effective rate of treatment. Meta-analysis showed that pain was significantly decreased in the EA alone group compared with the control group, although the quality of evidence was low. To improve the quality of evidence, high-quality RCTs are required in the future.

Keywords

• electroacupuncture
• failed back surgery syndrome
• meta-analysis
• systematic review