Effect of Laser Moxibustion for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Multisite, Double-blind Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective. To examine the effects of laser moxibustion on pain and function in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods. A double-blind randomized clinical trial (4-week treatment, 20-week follow-up) was conducted. A total of 392 symptomatic knee OA patients with moderate to severe clinically significant knee pain were randomly assigned to laser treatment or sham laser control group (1:1). Twelve sessions of laser moxibustion or sham laser treatments on the acupuncture points at the affected knee(s) were performed 3 times a week for 4 weeks. The primary outcome measurement was change in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain score from baseline to Week 4. Results. Among the 392 randomized participants, 364 (92.86%) completed the trial. The median WOMAC pain score decreased significantly at Week 4 in the active group than in the sham group (2.1, 95% CI 1.6–2.6, P < 0.01). At Week 24, compared to the sham laser, active laser treatment resulted in significant pain reduction and function improvement (3.0, 95% CI 2.5–3.6, P < 0.01, and 14.8, 95% CI 11.9–17.6, P < 0.01, respectively). The physical component of the quality of life significantly improved in the active group vs the sham controls at Week 4 (3.2, 95% CI 1.3–5.0, P = 0.001) up to Week 24 (5.1, 95% CI 3.3–7.0, P < 0.001). No serious adverse effects were reported. Conclusion. Laser moxibustion resulted in statistically and clinically significant pain reduction and function improvement following a 4-week treatment in patients with knee OA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Direct model labels (unvalidated)
Per-model category and study-design labels from the labeling rounds. They are machine output, unvalidated, and the disagreement between models ships as data. No study design here is MEDLINE-validated yet.
| Model arm | Categories | Study design | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Randomized trial | low |
| gpt | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Randomized trial | high |
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 | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
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, unvalidatedLabeled directly by 2 models reading the full record.
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".