The World Health Organization commissioned a review of the evidence basis for acupuncture treatment from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2006, and offers the following conclusions:

Table 1: World Health Organization indications “for which acupuncture has been proved through clinical trials to be an effective treatment:” 

  • Respiratory: allergic rhinitis

  • Gastrointestinal: biliary colic, dysentery, epigastralgia (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis and gastrospasm), morning sickness, nausea and vomiting

  • Pain: facial pain, headache, knee pain, low back pain, neck pain, dental and temporomandibular pain, periarthritis of the shoulder, postoperative pain, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, sprain, tennis elbow

  • Gynaecological/renal: colic, primary dysmenorrhoea, induction of labour, correction of malposition of fetus

  • Cardiovascular: hypertension, hypotension, strokePsychiatric: depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)

  • General: adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, leukopenia

Table 2. WHO list of indications for which “a therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown, but further evidence is needed:”

  • Respiratory: asthma, post-extubation in children, whooping cough

  • Ear, nose, and throat, eye and mouth: eye pain, epistaxis (nose bleeds), herpes zoster, Menier’s disease, sore throat, Sjogren syndrome

  • Gastrointestinal: cholecystitis, cholelithiasis, gastrokinetic disturbance,
    hepatitis B carrier status, ulcerative colitis

  • Neurolo-psychiatric: anxiety, Bell’s palsy, depression, facial spasm, neuralgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, dementia, schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome

  • Pain: abdominal pain, cancer pain, earache, fibromyalgia, gouty arthritis, osteoarthritis, radicular pain, spinal pain, pain due to endoscopic examination, stiff neck, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, Tietze syndrome

  • Skin: acne vulgaris, neurodermatitis, pruritus

  • Gynaecological/renal: female infertility, female urethral syndrome, hypoovarianism, labour pain, overactive bladder, polycystic ovary syndrome, premenstrual syndrome, urinary tract infections

  • Male sexual dysfunction: prostatitis, , bladder infections, recurrent lower urinary tract infection, urolithiasis, retention of urine

  • Cardiovascular: cardiac neurosis, hyperlipaemia, pain in thromboangiitis, Raynaud’s syndrome

  • General: alcohol dependence, competition stress syndrome, craniocerebral injury, diabetes (non-insulin dependent), haemorrhagic fever, obesity, insomnia, lactation deficiency, opium, cocaine and heroin, dependence, post operative convalescence, tobacco dependence,