Acupuncture, PCOS and infertility.

April 2010

Acupuncture promising for infertility in PCOS

Acupuncture may be useful in combating infertility among women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), Australian research suggests.

In preliminary results from the world’s first randomised controlled trial of acupuncture for PCOS, most of the treated women (aged 18 to 35) restored their menstrual cycle and several became pregnant. Around 108 women from Sydney and from Guangzhou, China, all of whom had no periods, were given either true or sham acupuncture.

Chief investigator Dr Danforn Lim, research medical scientist at the Chinese Medicine Clinical Research Centre, Liverpool Hospital, NSW, said 70 per cent of the women had their periods return for 3 consecutive months.

‘Interestingly, 9 patients [in China] went from having no periods to getting their periods back during treatment and then falling pregnant,’ he said.

One Australian woman in an earlier study also became pregnant despite the patients being warned to use contraception because some acupuncture points should be avoided in pregnant women.

The early study results were presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Auckland last week.



Reproduced with kind permission from Medical Observer Weekly.