Acupuncture for rheumatoid arthritis.

INTRODUCTION: Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common inflammatory arthritis worldwide. Chronic pain leads patients to use complementary therapies, including acupuncture.

METHODS: To answer this question we used Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We identified 7 systematic reviews including 20 studies overall, all of them randomized trials. We concluded the use of acupuncture probably has little or no impact in rheumatoid arthritis.