'Acupuncture Therapy' for Pain and Function Recovery in Spine Surgery Patients
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01304979. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Acupuncture has been studied in the perioperative setting and shown to reduce pain, anxiety, nausea and vomiting. Studies have been conducted in orthopedic surgery patients, but not spine patients. The investigators study will look at a combination of acupuncture therapies for patients having low back spine fusions to assess pain levels and return to function. 114 subjects will be randomized into a direct acupuncture therapy group (38), an indirect acupuncture therapy group (38), or usual care alone (38). All subjects will receive usual care for spine fusion patients. Direct acupuncture therapy subjects will have pre-op auricular seeds in four distinct ear points bilaterally, an acupuncture treatment on the day after surgery and an acupuncture treatment with gua sha on the 2nd day after surgery (typically day of discharge). The indirect acupuncture therapy group will have treatment timed exactly as the direct intervention group but consist of 'indirect' treatment: tape placed at ear points at pre-op, ear seeds placed on several body points on the first and second day after surgery. BPI, VAS, SPF36-2, and ODI measures will be taken at enrollment and at the 4-6 week follow-up appointment with subjects' spine surgeon. BPI and VAS will also be taken at day 3 and day 7-10 additionally.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01304979
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 114 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 21 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Aug 31, 2010
- Primary completion
- Apr 30, 2014
- Completion
- Apr 30, 2014
- Last update posted
- Dec 29, 2014
2010 – 2014
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beth Israel Medical Center Orthopedic Surgery, Spine Center | New York | New York | 10003 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01304979, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 29, 2014 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01304979 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.