EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DRY CUPPING IN INDIVIDUALS WITH NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW BACK PAIN: A CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED AND BLIND STUDY
Chronic Pain, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Physiotherapy
INTRODUCTION: Chronic low back pain is one of the main symptoms that leads to major disability worldwide. Several therapies are studied to reduce pain and improve function of people with chronic low back pain. The dry cupping is used to treat non-specific chronic low back pain. Recent systematic reviews on cupping therapy for people with chronic non-specific low back pain conclude that the existing literature has a high risk of bias and that high-quality studies are needed. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the dry cupping on pain, physical function, quality of life and psychological symptoms in individuals with non-specific chronic low back pain compared to a sham group. METHODS: This is a randomized, controlled, double-blind study with hidden allocation and intention to treat analysis. Ninety patients were allocated to two groups, experimental group and sham group. Interventions: The experimental group (n = 45) received dry cupping therapy, parallel to the L1 - L5 vertebrae, bilaterally. The control group (n = 45) received the same procedure, but with sham dry cupping therapy. The interventions were applied once a week, for 8 weeks, with a time of 10 minutes each section. Participants were assessed before and after the first session, after 4 and 8 weeks of intervention. The primary outocome was pain, evaluated by using the numerical pain intensity scale. Secondary outcomes were physical function (ODI), functional mobility (TUG), range of motion of the trunk, perception of the global effect (GPE), quality of life (SF-36) and psychological symptoms (HADS). RESULTS: There were no significant differences between groups for pain intensity at any time. There was a significant difference in favor of the control group for the perception of the global effect in four weeks [mean difference (MD) 1.2 points, confidence interval (CI) 95% 0.4 to 2.0; p = 0.001)] and eight weeks (MD 1.5 points, 95% CI 0.6 to 2.4; p <0.001) of treatment compared to the first intervention. There were no statistically significant differences for the other secondary outcomes. CONCLUSION: Treatment with dry cupping was not superior to the sham dry cupping for reducing pain or improving physical function, quality of life and psychological symptoms in people with chronic low back pain.