A comparison of the effects of electroacupuncture versus transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation for pain control in knee osteoarthritis: a Bayesian network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: To compare the effectiveness of electroacupuncture (EA) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for pain control in knee osteoarthritis (KOA). METHODS: Four English (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science) and three Chinese (China Science Journal Citation Report (VIP), Wanfang and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI)) language databases were searched for eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs), comparing four approaches: EA, TENS, medication and sham/placebo controls. The primary outcome was pain intensity, measured by visual analogue scale (VAS), numeric-rating scale (NRS) or Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scale. Classic pairwise and Bayesian network meta-analyses were conducted to integrate the treatment efficacy/effectiveness through direct and indirect evidence. RESULTS: Thirteen studies were included. In the direct meta-analyses, there was no statistically significant overall effect of EA (mean difference (MD) -4.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) -12.51 to 2.96), while the overall effects of high-frequency transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (H-TENS) (MD -16.63, 95% CI -24.57 to -8.69) and medication (MD -7.12, 95% CI -12.07 to -2.17) were statistically significant. In the network meta-analyses, the relative effect of the EA and H-TENS groups (MD 5.07, 95% CI -11.33 to 21.93) on pain control did not differ. Meanwhile, H-TENS demonstrated the highest probability of being the first best treatment, and EA had the second highest probability. CONCLUSION: The present analysis indicated that both EA and TENS exert significant pain relieving effects in KOA. Among the four treatments, H-TENS was found to be the optimal treatment choice for the management of KOA pain in the short-term, and EA the second best treatment option. Given that the application of TENS is recommended by various international guidelines for the treatment of KOA, EA may also represent a potentially effective non-pharmacologic therapy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.079 | 0.143 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.022 | 0.062 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".