Acupuncture is not as effective as infertility treatment in women with PCOS.

Abstract

Commentary on : Wu XK, Stener-Victorin E, Kuang HY, et al. Effect of acupuncture and clomiphene in Chinese women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a randomised clinical trial. JAMA 2017;317:2502–14. Ovulatory dysfunction is considered to be one of the major characteristics of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects 5%–10% of women of reproductive age and leads to 70%–80% of anovulatory infertility. Many ovulation induction treatments, including clomiphene citrate, letrozole, exogenous gonadotropin and laparoscopic ovarian drilling, have limited effectiveness, safety and negative side effects. Acupuncture has been used in eastern Asian countries for thousands of years, and the use of acupuncture in reproductive endocrinology and infertility is becoming popular in research and clinical practice. Several clinical and animal experimental studies indicate that acupuncture may improve ovulation frequency by improving endocrine profile and normalising insulin sensitivity.1 2 However, evidence is of very low quality. Many …