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Acupuncture seems to provide a small but significant benefit to patients with chronic low back pain and also proves cost-effective in the long term, suggest two studies published in the "British Medical Journal" (BMJ).

Non-specific chronic low back pain are a common problem causing high health expenditures health. In the UK, over 16% of the adult population consult their GP each year for back pain. The annual cost of back pain to the British health system has been estimated at over 703 million euros a year, say the authors of this study.

Acupuncture is used by about 2% of the adult population each year for various indications including back pain. However, no formal proof of the long-term effectiveness of such a gentle therapy could be made.

To resolve this issue, Dr. Thomas of the University of Sheffield (UK) and colleagues conducted a study of 241 adults aged between 18 and 65 years old and suffering from chronic non-specific low back pain for a period of 4 to 52 weeks. Participants were randomly divided into two groups to receive either standard treatment patients) or a treatment consisting of 10 sessions of traditional acupuncture (160 patients). The patients' pain was then measured at regular intervals during the two years of follow-up.

According to their results, patients who received acupuncture sessions reported a slight benefit in terms of pain reduction after 12 months of treatment compared to patients who received standard treatment. After 24 months of treatment, an increased benefit was observed.

Despite the small difference in terms of pain reduction between acupuncture and conventional treatment, this is a valid clinical benefit corresponding to a "moderate" effect, according to the authors.