The use of acupuncture as a complementary treatment for endometriosis: A systematic review

Ana Luísa Serrano Lima, Kelly Cristina Suzue Iamaguchi Luz, Gabriel Zanin Sanguino, Larissa Carolina Segantini Felipin, Giovana Tófoli Sampaio, Lais Kaori Sato Murrugarra, Giovana Munhoz Dias, Ana Clara Luckner, Lorraine de Souza Santos, Fernanda Furlan Santoro, Rita de Cássia Pereira Carvalho, Flávia Cristina Vieira Frez
In: Health and Medicine: Science, Care, and Discoveries · 2023 · doi:10.56238/sevened2023.004-010 · W4388560960
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This systematic review found that acupuncture effectively alleviates pelvic pain and improves quality of life in women with endometriosis as a complementary treatment.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This systematic review evaluated published evidence on acupuncture as an adjuvant, integrative complementary treatment for endometriosis, using a pre-established protocol for literature search, selection, and data extraction. Across included studies, the review reports therapeutic efficacy of acupuncture for endometriosis-associated pain, describing mechanisms such as stimulation of receptors and nerve fibers leading to release of endogenous opioids and continuous pain relief, with some findings of greater pelvic pain relief than drug therapy and improved quality of life. The major caveat is that, being a systematic review, the conclusions depend on the underlying studies identified and extracted by the review’s search and inclusion process. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it systematically reviews evidence for acupuncture as a complementary integrative treatment for endometriosis-related pelvic pain and quality of life.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is a multifactorial estrogen-dependent and inflammatory gynecological condition characterized by the presence of fragments of endometrial tissue outside the uterine cavity. Due to the negative impact on the physical and psychological appearance of women, endometriosis is considered a public health problem. The Ministry of Health presents the National Policy on Integrative and Complementary Practices (PNPIC), which aims to incorporate and implement experiences outside of Traditional Medicine, among which Acupuncture stands out, a Chinese technique that has proven to be effective for treating pain . This work aims to identify evidence-based recommendations in the literature on the use of Acupuncture and its resources for the adjuvant treatment of endometriosis and is a systematic review of the literature using a pre-established protocol for the search, selection and extraction of data. From this review study, it was possible to verify the therapeutic efficacy of acupuncture as a complementary and integrative treatment for endometriosis, as the technique excites receptors and nerve fibers leading to the release of endogenous opioids, resulting in continuous pain relief. Furthermore, studies have shown that the practice of acupuncture provided greater relief from pelvic pain when compared to the use of drug therapy, in addition to improving the quality of life of women affected by this disease.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (15)

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last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
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