Am J Chin Med. 2001 ; 29(2): 187-99.

The analgesic efficacy of bee venom acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis: a comparative study with needle acupuncture.

Kwon YB, Kim JH, Yoon JH, Lee JD, Han HJ, Mar WC, Beitz AJ, Lee JH.

Department of Veterinary Physiology, College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Suwon, Korea.

The aim of this investigation was to determine whether bee venom (BV) administered directly into an acupoint was a clinically effective and safe method for relieving the pain of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) as compared to traditional needle acupuncture. We evaluated the efficacy of BV acupuncture using both pain relief scores and computerized infrared thermography (IRT) following 4 weeks of BV acupuncture treatment. We observed that a significantly higher proportion of subjects receiving BV acupuncture reported substantial pain relief as compared with those receiving traditional needle acupuncture therapy. Furthermore, the IRT score was significantly improved and paralleled the level of pain relief.