Review Article Acupuncture or Acupressure at the Sanyinjiao (SP6) Acupoint for the Treatment of Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Copyright © 2013 Ma-Na Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture or acupressure at the Sanyinjiao (SP6) acupoint in relieving pain associatedwith primary dysmenorrhea.We searched the scientific literature databases to identify randomized controlled trials. The primary outcome was visual analogue scale (VAS) pain score. Three acupuncture and four acupressure trials were included in themeta-analyses. For the acupuncture analysis, there was no difference in themeanVAS score reduction between the SP6 acupoint and control (GB39 acupoint) groups (−4.935; lower limit = −15.757, upper limit = 5.887