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Fig. 1 | Trials

Fig. 1

From: The cerebral mechanism of acupuncture for treating knee osteoarthritis: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Fig. 1

Flow chart of the trial. The present study is a randomized controlled neuroimaging trial. One hundred and eight knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients will be included and randomized equally to one of three groups: a verum acupuncture group, a sham acupuncture group and a waiting-list group. For the 36 patients in each group, this trial will include a 2-week baseline period and a 2-week treatment period. During the 2-week treatment, patients in the two acupuncture groups will receive 10 sessions of puncturing treatments, while the waiting-list group will not receive acupuncture. Both the outcome assessments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan will be performed at two time points: baseline and end of acupuncture treatments. The central mechanism of verum acupuncture in the treatment of KOA will be analyzed after data collection

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