Research on Random Control of Acupuncture Treating 72 Cases Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Objetive: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of acupoint acupuncture in treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) taking placebo acupuncture as control. Methods: The 72 cases CFS patients fulfilling the admission standard were divided randomly into an acupoint group (47 cases) and a placebo acupuncture group (25 cases), who were treated for 16 weeks and evaluated by Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) and Somatic and Psychological Health Report (SPHERE) at the 0th, 4th and 16th week respectively. Results: The accumulated FSS and SPHERE scores of both groups decreased (P0.05). Conclusions: Short-term acupoint acupuncture was better than placebo acupuncture in the treatment of CFS in terms of alleviating fatigue and reducing associated symptoms, and acupoint acupuncture had specific curative effect on CFS, however ,a longer course of treatment was needed in order to consolidate the curative effect of acupoint acupuncture.