A Study of Acupuncture for Treating Asthma
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Acupuncture, Sham Acupuncture, Usual Care.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Asthma Chronic, Asthma (Diagnosis), Asthma. Basic parameters: 18 years — 70 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
The Effects of Acupuncture on Patients With Chronic Asthma: a Multicenter, Randomized, Three-arm, Sham-controlled Superiority Trial
Overview
Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease with a low clinical control rate, highlighting the need for novel therapeutic strategies. Recurrent asthma attacks emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, etc. On the contrary, symptoms such as anxiety and depression worsen asthma control. Acupuncture is commonly applied as an effective traditional Chinese medical therapy for asthma. Acupoints GV14, BL13 and BL12 are adopted for the intervention of asthma. GV20 and GV29 are selected to improve emotional symptoms including depression. Nevertheless, standardized therapeutic regimens of acupuncture for asthma and its concomitant emotional symptoms are still lacking. 180 patients with mild to moderate asthma will be recruited in this multicenter randomized controlled trial, randomly assigned to the true acupuncture group, sham acupuncture group and usual care group. The primary outcome is the score of the Asthma Control Test (ACT). Secondary outcomes include the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ), pulmonary function, and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO). The superiority of combined acupuncture therapy in improving asthma control, relieving negative emotions, and enhancing quality of life is to be verified in this study, with high quality evidence for acupuncture treatment of asthma thereby to be provided.
Interventions
- Procedure Acupuncture
Patients are seated with routine disinfection of acupoints. Dazhui (GV14) is perpendicularly needled 0.5-1 cun; Feishu (BL13) and Fengmen (BL12) are perpendicularly needled toward the spine for 0.5-0.8 cun; Baihui (GV20) is needled subcutaneously at 15-30° to the scalp for 0.5 cun; Yintang (GV29) is obliquely needled downward for 0.3-0.5 cun after pinching local skin . Even reinforcing-reducing manipulation is adopted. Each treatment lasts 30 minutes, three times weekly (no treatment on Sundays) - Procedure Sham Acupuncture
Patients are seated with routine disinfection of acupoints. Streitberger non-penetrating placebo needles are applied to the same acupoints as true acupuncture (Dazhui GV14, Feishu BL13, Fengmen BL12, Baihui GV20, Yintang GV29) with identical position, duration and frequency. Each sham session lasts 30 minutes, three times weekly (no treatment on Sundays) for 10 consecutive sessions. Eye masks are used, with separation of operators and outcome assessors. - Other Usual Care
Patients receive routine asthma pharmacological treatment without additional acupuncture intervention.
Primary outcome measures
- Asthma Control Test (ACT) [Time frame: Change from baseline to week 4 (end of treatment)]
Secondary outcome measures (2)
- Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) [Time frame: Change from baseline to week 4 (end of treatment)]
- Asthma-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) [Time frame: Change from baseline to week 4 (end of treatment)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Meet the diagnostic criteria for asthma, and be in the chronic persistent phase with mild to moderate disease severity, referring to the grading criteria of the Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Asthma (2024 Edition).
- Aged 18 to 70 years, regardless of gender.
- Asthma Control Test (ACT) score≤19 points (poorly controlled or very poorly controlled asthma).
- Maintain a stable asthma treatment regimen for at least 4 weeks before enrollment.
- Clear thinking and consciousness, coherent responses, able to understand the items of various scales and complete the assessment.
- Volunteer to participate in this study and sign a written informed consent form.
Exclusion criteria
- Complicated with severe mental illnesses (such as uncontrolled schizophrenia, acute phase of bipolar disorder, etc.) or moderate to severe cognitive impairment (such as dementia), resulting in inability to understand the research process or cooperate with efficacy evaluation.
- A history of substance/alcohol dependence within the past 12 months.
- Complicated with other physical diseases that may cause depressive symptoms (such as hypothyroidism, chronic pain syndrome, malignant tumors, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.).
- Received antidepressant drug treatment within the past 6 months.
- Suffering from other respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis, etc.
- Complicated with other cancers or relatively severe chronic diseases of the heart, liver, kidneys, etc.
- Received acupuncture treatment within the past 3 months.
- Pregnant or lactating women.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Double blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
Identifiers
NCT: NCT07611955 · 2026SHL-KY-68-01