Acupuncture Treatment for Premenstrual Syndrome

Background: Acupuncture might be an effective intervention for treating premenstrual pain syndrome (PMS). Objective: The aim of this review was to investigate various acupuncture methods and analyze treatment characteristics for future research studies. Search Strategy: A specified literature search was performed in MEDLINE (R) (2001-2011) and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (1992-2011). The key word searches combined premenstrual syndromerelated, menstrual-related, and acupuncture-related terms. Results: Twelve studies were found that met the criteria. Eleven of the trials focused on observing the treatment effect of acupuncture on PMS, while one trial focused on the relationship between pain sensitivity at acupoints and the severity of PMS. Nine studies applied body acupuncture and one used scalp acupuncture, and one used auricular acupuncture. Three studies lacked controls. The results of eight studies showed that acupuncture groups had better therapeutic effects than those in control groups. Conclusions: There were some specific acupuncture-treatment characteristics for PMS, point selection, syndrome differentiation, and timing of interventions. Further, well-designed, PMS, acupuncture clinical trials, which include the specific characteristics are needed.