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Theory and Methodology of Evidence-Based Medicine in Acupuncture Research

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Current Research in Acupuncture

Abstract

As an ancient empirical medicine, acupuncture has profound theory basis and extensive clinical application. With the popularity of evidence-based medicine (EBM), rigorous challenges have been brought to acupuncture: (1) How to translate the tremendous source of evidence into an optimal treatment schema in clinical practice? (2) How to integrate the theory and methodology of the empirical medicine with that of EBM into a theory and methodology which will benefit the development of acupuncture? The aim of this chapter is to encourage reflection on the combination of the theory and methodology of EBM with the features of acupuncture so as to guide acupuncture clinical practice, health policy, and scientific research.

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Acknowledgments

We very appreciate the invitation from Prof. Xia that we could introduce our research team’s ideas and results on combination of evidence-based medicine with acupuncture. Most of the researches were funded by Key Project of Chinese National Programs for Fundamental Research and Development (973 Program). We want to thank all the participants, especially the Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, for their full support. Special appreciation goes to all clinical centers for technical, administrative, and material support and Chengdu GCP for statistical analysis. At last, we would like to make a grateful acknowledgment to all participants and authors for their contribution in developing evidence-based acupuncture and moxibustion.

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Correspondence to Fanrong Liang .

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Liang, F. et al. (2013). Theory and Methodology of Evidence-Based Medicine in Acupuncture Research. In: Xia, Y., Ding, G., Wu, GC. (eds) Current Research in Acupuncture. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3357-6_20

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