Objective: Evaluation of the effects of a standardized acupuncture treatment in primary Raynaud's syndrome.
Design: A controlled randomized prospective study.
Setting: A winter period of 23 weeks, angiological clinic of Hannover Medical School.
Subjects: Thirty-three patients with primary Raynaud's syndrome (16 control, 17 treatment).
Interventions: The patients of the treatment group were given seven acupuncture treatments during the weeks 10 and 11 of the observation period.
Main outcome measures: All patients kept a diary throughout the entire observation period noting daily frequency, duration and severity of their vasospastic attacks. A local cooling test combined with nailfold capillaroscopy was performed for all patients at baseline (week 1) and in weeks 12 and 23, recording flowstop reactions of the nailfold capillaries.
Results: The treated patients showed a significant decrease in the frequency of attacks from 1.4 day-1 to 0.6 day-1, P < 0.01 (control 1.6 to 1.2, P = 0.08). The overall reduction of attacks was 63% (control 27%, P = 0.03). The mean duration of the capillary flowstop reaction decreased from 71 to 24 s (week 1 vs. week 12, P = 0.001) and 38 s (week 1 vs. week 23, P = 0.02) respectively. In the control group the changes were not significant.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that traditional Chinese acupuncture is a reasonable alternative in treating patients with primary Raynaud's syndrome.