Distal point acupuncture for cervical spondylosis with radiculopathy based on flow of meridians: A research protocol for clinical trial

Radiculopathy is the chief pattern of cervical spondylosis (CS) characterized by neck pain, numbness, stiffness and radicular pain to the arms and fingers. Nowadays acupuncture is a complementary therapy for radiculopathy which is regarded as one of most effective, widely used and well-accepted method. However, most of the classic acupuncture is only taken by the proximal and local acupoints while distal acupoints along meridians is another empirical option, which considered as the point-selection treatment based on syndrome differentiation. In this paper, we present a research protocol designed for a single-parallel, randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the effect of the distal point acupuncture treatment for radiculopathy. In our study, the objective is to evaluate the clinical effect of the distal point acupuncture treatment along meridians compared with the classic acupuncture treatment by proximal and local acupoints.