Acupuncture Treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Exacerbation

Bnai Zion Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: COPD Exacerbation

Treatments: Other: Sham procedure; Other: Acupuncture

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03398213

0108-17-BNZ

Details and patient eligibility

About

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major health problem. Acute exacerbations are a health-care burden involving frequent hospitalizations and elevated costs. They have effective therapies with significant side effects. Acupuncture has been shown to reduce dyspnea and other COPD-related symptoms. The investigators will compare the efficacy and safety of the addition of true acupuncture to usual care with both sham-acupressure added to usual care and usual care only for the treatment of acute exacerbations of COPD among inpatients.

Full description

This is an assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial in the setting of a tertiary academic medical center in Israel. Patients with clinical diagnosis of acute exacerbation of COPD will be randomized to either usual care only, usual care with true acupuncture or usual care with sham-acupressure. The primary outcome will be clinical improvement of dyspnea as measured by mBorg scale. Secondary outcomes included improvement of other patient-reported outcomes and physiologic features, as well as duration of hospitalization and treatment failure. Acupuncture-related side effects will be evaluated by the validated Acupuncture Adverse Events (AcupAE) questionnaire.

Enrollment: 72 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Previous diagnosis of COPD
• Clinical diagnosis of acute exacerbation of COPD
• Informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• Hemodynamic instability
• Platelet count < 20 x 10^9/L
• Expected respiratory deterioration requiring mechanical ventilation in the next 24 hours

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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72 participants in 3 patient groups

Acupuncture

Experimental group

Description:

Acupuncture for treatment of COPD exacerbation + standard conventional care for COPD exacerbation

Treatment:

Other: Acupuncture

Sham procedure

Sham Comparator group

Description:

Ear stimulation with plaster + standard conventional care for COPD exacerbation

Treatment:

Other: Sham procedure

Standard care

No Intervention group

Description:

Standard conventional care for COPD exacerbation