Research advance and prospects of evidence-based acupuncture science in China

Acupuncture is a traditional empirical medicine, and evidence-based medicine(EBM) is a new medical method and development of the empirical medicine. Since 1990s, Chinese acupuncture workers began to absorb and use the methods and principles of EBM to guide acupuncture clinical research and practice. Now more and more domestic acupuncture clinicians use and follow the methods and principles of EBM. On the systemic review of acupuncture-associated articles in Cochrane library, previously effective acupuncture therapy lacks adequate evidences, which may be related to the low quality of randomized controlled trials(RCTs). In the future, only developing specialized team of acupuncture clinical research and clinical research center can radically elevate the levels of acupuncture clinical research and evaluation. Meanwhile, developing China's evidence-based acupuncture should base itself on the characteristics of acupuncture, such as emphasis on original research in ancient books, high-quality single RCTs and systemic review of non-randomized researches. © Shanghai Research Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian 2007.