BACKGROUND: Neck pain caused by cervical spondylosis (CS) is a chronic pain condition, with an increasingly high incidence in the general population. Electroacupuncture is a common analgesic modality that has been widely applied in neck pain treatment. However, current electroacupuncture instruments used in the clinic have low intelligence levels and obscure parameter standards. We here designed this study for assessing the effect and safety of a new, intelligent electroacupuncture instrument, the CX-DZ-II, in treating neck pain. METHODS: The present study is a prospective, two-center, randomized, controlled, open-label, non-inferiority trial for CX-DZ-II on treating neck pain caused by CS. Totally 160 eligible patients will be included in this trial and randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group in a 1:1 ratio. A semi-standard acupoint selection strategy will be employed. In the experimental group, selected acupoints will be stimulated by CX-DZ-II. Electroacupuncture treatment will be accomplished by a pre-existing electroacupuncture instrument in the control group. The duration of treatment will be 2 weeks. The primary outcome is the change of Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score after one course of treatment. The secondary outcomes include the VAS scores after each treatment, the responder rate, drug-usage rate of non-steroidal antipyretic analgesics, the rate of adverse events occurrence, and the performance of instrument. DISCUSSION This study will evaluate the effect and safety of the CX-DZ-II intelligent electroacupuncture therapeutic instrument in comparison with a pre-existing non-intelligent instrument in the treatment of neck pain caused by CS. The results will hopefully demonstrate a more optimal electroacupuncture instrument for the treatment of neck pain. (Trial registration No. gov NCT03005301).
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Electroacupuncture ; instrumentation ; methods ; Equivalence Trials as Topic ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Multicenter Studies as Topic ; Neck Pain ; therapy ; Pain Measurement ; Prospective Studies ; Spondylosis ; therapy ; Young Adult