Question 1: Is there any evidence of clinical heterogeneity between these trials?
Yes, there is a lot of clinical heterogeneity.
What these trials have in common is that they use acupuncture to control pain. The source of the pain varies greatly, including acute pain due to a measurement (colonoscopy), chronic pain (osteoarthritis and low back pain), post-operative pain, etc.
As a result of the variety of conditions being treated, the duration of treatment and number of acupuncture sessions varies also, as does whether measurement of pain is contemporaneous or at a later follow-up.
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Last updated: 16 February, 2009.