Junhua Zhang
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2010;88:915-921C. doi: 10.2471/BLT.10.076737
Introduction
Acupuncture is popular in most countries, but nowhere more than in China. Because its use is so widespread, safety is an important issue that deserves close attention. Serious adverse events resulting from acupuncture, including pneumothorax, cardiac tamponade, spinal cord injury and viral hepatitis, have been identified in previous literature reviews.1–4 Prospective surveys to determine the frequency of acupuncture-related adverse events have been conducted in Germany,5,6 Norway7and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.8,9 These studies have shown an incidence of mild, transient acupuncture-related adverse events that ranges from 6.71% to 15%. The most common adverse events of this type were local pain from needling (range: 1.1–2.9%) and slight bleeding or haematoma (range: 2.1–6.1%). In a prospective observational study of 190 924 patients, the incidence of serious adverse events (death, organ trauma or hospital admission) was about 0.024%.5 Another large-scale observational study showed a rate of adverse events requiring specific treatment of 2.2% (4963 incidents among 229 230 subjects).6Studies such as these have shown that in extremely rare cases acupuncture can lead to serious, sometimes life-threatening complications, in addition to mild and transient adverse events.
Because most reports on the safety of acupuncture have been published outside China, the objective of this article was to summarize the Chinese literature on the subject of acupuncture-related adverse events and determine the possible reasons that such events occur.