Studies have reported that mild adverse events (AEs) are common after manual therapy and that there is a risk of serious injury. We aimed to assess the safety of Chuna manipulation therapy (CMT), a traditional manual Korean therapy, by analysing AEs in patients who underwent this treatment. Patients who received at least one session of CMT between December 2009 and March 2019 at 14 Korean medicine hospitals were included. Electronic patient charts and internal audit data obtained from situation report logs were retrospectively analysed. All data were reviewed by two researchers. The inter-rater agreement was assessed using the Cohen’s kappa coefficient, and reliability analysis among hospitals was assessed using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. In total, 2,682,258 CMT procedures were performed in 289,953 patients during the study period. There were 50 AEs, including worsened pain (n = 29), rib fracture (n = 11), falls during treatment (n = 6), chest pain (n = 2), dizziness (n = 1), and unpleasant feeling (n = 1). The incidence of mild to moderate AEs was 1.83 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.36–2.39) per 100,000 treatment sessions, and that of severe AEs was 0.04 (95% CI 0.00–0.16) per 100,000 treatment sessions. Thus, AEs of any level of severity were very rare after CMT. Moreover, there were no instances of carotid artery dissection or spinal cord injury, which are the most severe AEs associated with manual therapy in other countries.

Objectives This study was performed to research the trends of Korean traditional medicine treatment for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM). Methods Clinical studies about Korean traditional medicine of CSM were searched in 7 online databases. We extracted the characteristics of selected studies according to author, publication year, country, research design, treatment methods, evaluation tools, and adverse events. Results Nineteen studies were selected in online databases. The included studies consist of 8 uncontrolled trial, 7 case reports, 3 randomized controlled trials and 1 non-randomized controlled trials. In these studies, various Korean traditional medicine treatments were performed, and herbal medicine was the most common. The most commonly used outcomes was effective rate. Conclusions This study showed that Korean traditional medicine could be an effective treatment for CSM. It was suggested that various studies should be conducted to provide objective evidence of the therapeutic effects of Korean traditional medicine treatment for CSM.

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Objectives This review aims to analyze the current research trend in the usage of bee venom (BV) acupuncture for articular diseases of single type joint. Methods We collected 74 articles on BV acupuncture clinical study for articular diseases of single joint by searching Korean web databases 'Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation', 'Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System', 'Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal' from 1999 to 2020 August. Results We summarized the most frequent clinical treatment methods of BV acupuncture for articular diseases of single type joint. Research focused on specific diseases in application of BV acupuncture about some articular type diseases of single joint. It is assumed that the details of treatment for each joint are not related to the type of joint. In clinical study of BV acupuncture, reproducibility was mostly insufficient. Conclusions BV acupuncture clinical study for articular diseases of single joint should be proceed for a number of subjects, to treat various types of disease, by using more safe and detailed treatments.

The objective of this study is to report an accidental detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) metastasis to spine during conservative treatment for lumbar disc herniation. We treated a 65-year-old female who was diagnosed with lumbar disc herniation on September 2019 by acupuncture, pharmacopuncture, cupping treatment, chuna manual therapy, herbal medicine treatment, medicine treatment and physical therapy. After that we analyzed medical record from December 12, 2019 to February 11, 2020. The patient was diagnosed with CRC and received tumor resection in 2014. After 2 times of chemotherapy, she arbitrarily interrupted the treatment. Since she stated that CRC treatment was terminated, we had difficulty in finding connection between symptom and CRC. During the treatment period, compression fracture at L3 body was found, which was caused by CRC metastasis. Rigorous question, appropriate radiological and clinical tests are required to patients who have history of malignant tumor.