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Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | 3/2018 NEWS 33 Study finds acu- puncture could help with dental anxiety By DTI YORK, UK: Fear of the dentist is something some people suffer from more than others. With mul- tiple reasons for dental anxiety and its effects, there is however limited research on its impact and possible treatment methods. In an effort to look deeper into the top- ic, researchers from the Universi- ty of York have recently reviewed a number of studies on treating dental anxiety with acupuncture, and the results show it could be a helpful tool. For the systematic review and meta-analysis, six trials with a total of 800 patients were chosen from almost 130 eligible trials. The researchers used a points scale to measure anxiety, and in the stud- ies included, anxiety was shown to be reduced by eight points when dental patients were given acupuncture as a treatment. Ac- cording to the researchers, this level of reduction is considered to be clinically relevant, indicating that acupuncture could be a pos- sibility for treating dental anxiety. Co-author Dr Hugh MacPherson, Professor of Acupuncture Re- search at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences, said: “There is increasing scientific interest in the effectiveness of ac- upuncture either as a standalone treatment or as an accompany- ing treatment to more traditional medications.” Of the six studies, those that compared anxiety levels between patients that received acupunc- ture and those that did not show a significant difference in anxi- ety scores during dental treat- ment. However, the researchers noted that no conclusions could be drawn between patients that received acupuncture as an inter- vention and those that received placebo treatment, and suggested that larger controlled trials are needed to increase the robustness of the findings. “If acupuncture is to be integrated into dental practices, or for use in other cases of extreme anxi- ety, then there needs to be more high-quality research that dem- onstrates that it can have a lasting impact on the patient. Early indi- cations look positive, but there is still more work to be done,” said MacPherson. The study, titled “Acupuncture for anxiety in dental patients: Systematic review and meta-anal- ysis”, was published in the June 2018 issue of the European Jour- nal of Integrative Medicine. Researchers from the University of York have found that acupuncture could help with dental anxiety. (Photograph: acupuncturebox/pixabay) VITA SMART.FIRE® The efficient firing unit for CAD/CAM restorations For crystallization, glaze, stains and correction fi ring E 2 5 5 3 VITA SMART.FIRE® With VITA SMART.FIRE® you benefit from: • Intuitive operation – material selection and program start in one step • Convenient use, thanks to highly compact design • Reliable functioning thanks to long-lasting firing technology and software-based assistance function www.vita-zahnfabrik.com facebook.com/vita.zahnfabrik VITA – perfect match.