An Updated Review of the Efficacy of Cupping Therapy

Abstract

BackgroundSince 1950, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cupping therapy has been applied as a formal modality in hospitals throughout China and elsewhere in the world. Based on a previous systematic literature review of clinical studies on cupping therapy, this study presents a thorough review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the therapeutic effect of cupping therapy.MethodSix databases were searched for articles published through 2010. RCTs on cupping therapy for various diseases were included. Studies on cupping therapy combined with other TCM treatments versus non-TCM therapies were excluded.Results135 RCTs published from 1992 through 2010 were identified. The studies were generally of low methodological quality. Diseases for which cupping therapy was commonly applied were herpes zoster, facial paralysis (Bell palsy), cough and dyspnea, acne, lumbar disc herniation, and cervical spondylosis. Wet cupping was used in most trials, followed by retained cupping, moving cupping, and flash cupping. Meta-analysis showed cupping therapy combined with other TCM treatments was significantly superior to other treatments alone in increasing the number of cured patients with herpes zoster, facial paralysis, acne, and cervical spondylosis. No serious adverse effects were reported in the trials.ConclusionsNumerous RCTs on cupping therapy have been conducted and published during the past decades. This review showed that cupping has potential effect in the treatment of herpes zoster and other specific conditions. However, further rigorously designed trials on its use for other conditions are warranted.

Cupping for Treating Neck Pain in Video Display Terminal (VDT) Users: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial

“…Domains such as allocation concealment, incomplete outcome data and selective outcome reporting were not appropriately or never reported in most of the studies 29) . In addition, most of the cupping studies adopted cupping not as a single intervention but in combination with acupuncture or other treatment modalities from which we cannot estimate the specific effect of cupping therapy 29) . We conducted this study with methodological rigor to eliminate serious bias and compared the effect of cupping for neck pain to heating pad therapy without other co-interventions.…”

Pulsatile dry cupping in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee – a randomized controlled exploratory trial

“…lower back pain [6], carpal tunnel syndrome [7], brachialgia paresthetica nocturna [8], cancer pain [9] and chronic neck pain [10-12]. In China Cupping is widely used and two systematic reviews were recently published about the results [13,14]. …”

An Unusual Skin Allergy Post Wet Cupping

“…There is no definitive conclusion due to high dropout rates [7] . Most of the RCTs in the existing literature demonstrated no serious adverse effects [8] .…”

“…There is no definitive conclusion due to high dropout rates [7] . Most of the RCTs in the existing literature demonstrated no serious adverse effects [8] .This unique case cannot further explored or investigating due to lack of controlled studies on such cases, plus what the lady stated could be a mix up about her story and the application of the olive oil after that.In the present case, this acute reaction could be explained as secondary to the cupping maneuver carried out itself (vigorous suction), breakage up of the skin capillary, an unexplained body immunological reaction toward the cupping, Olive oil and possibly other oils associated application ways, skin cutting technique, or simply due to the repeated cupping and trauma. Although no immunological tests were performed as no similar history of the incident was reported before in the existing literature, thus the exact cause remains mystery.…”