• Chun-Chuan Shih, Yi-Ting Hsu, Hwang-Huei Wang, Ta-Liang Chen, Chin-Chuan Tsai, Hsin-Long Lane, Chun-Chieh Yeh, Fung-Chang Sung, Wen-Ta Chiu, Yih-Giun Cherng, and Chien-Chang Liao.
• School of Chinese Medicine for Post-Baccalaureate, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
• Plos One. 2014 Jan 1;9(2):e89208.

BackgroundPatients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) face increased risk of stroke. Whether acupuncture can help to protect TBI patients from stroke has not previously been studied.MethodsTaiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database was used to conduct a retrospective cohort study of 7409 TBI patients receiving acupuncture treatment and 29,636 propensity-score-matched TBI patients without acupuncture treatment in 2000-2008 as controls. Both TBI cohorts were followed until the end of 2010 and adjusted for immortal time to measure the incidence and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of new-onset stroke in the multivariable Cox proportional hazard models.ResultsTBI patients with acupuncture treatment (4.9 per 1000 person-years) had a lower incidence of stroke compared with those without acupuncture treatment (7.5 per 1000 person-years), with a HR of 0.59 (95% CI = 0.50-0.69) after adjustment for sociodemographics, coexisting medical conditions and medications. The association between acupuncture treatment and stroke risk was investigated by sex and age group (20-44, 45-64, and ≥65 years). The probability curve with log-rank test showed that TBI patients receiving acupuncture treatment had a lower probability of stroke than those without acupuncture treatment during the follow-up period (p<0.0001).ConclusionPatients with TBI receiving acupuncture treatment show decreased risk of stroke compared with those without acupuncture treatment. However, this study was limited by lack of information regarding lifestyles, biochemical profiles, TBI severity, and acupuncture points used in treatments.

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