Vickers AJ, et al. Acupuncture for postchemotherapy fatigue: A phase II study. J Clin Oncol 2004;22(9):1731-1735.
This study involved cancer patients who had completed chemotherapy but experienced persistent fatigue. 25 patients received acupuncture twice a week for 4 weeks and 12 patients received acupuncture once a week for 6 weeks. Patients reported an improvement of 31% in fatigue level measured at 2 weeks after the final treatment compared to the baseline. There was no significant difference in weekly and bi-weekly treatments. The result suggests that acupuncture has benefit in treating postchemotherapy fatigue. However, this is only a preliminary study on a small number of patients and was not randomized. Further studies involving large number of patients are warranted.

Vickers AJ, et al. Acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care: large, pragmatic, randomized trial. BMJ 2004;328(7442):744-49.
In this study, 401 patients with chronic headache were randomly assigned to receive up to 12 acupuncture treatments over a period of 3 months or conventional treatment. Patients in the acupuncture group reported fewer headaches, less use of medication, fewer visits to doctors, and improved quality of life compared to those who received conventional care. Researchers concluded that acupuncture offers persistent clinical benefits for patients with chronic headache, particularly migraine.

Xue CCL, et al. Electroacupuncture for tension-type headache on distal acupoints only: A randomized, controlled, crossover trial. Headache 2004:44:333-41.
In this study, 37 patients with tension-type headache were randomly assigned to receive real electroacupuncture or sham electroacupuncture for 4 weeks. Following a washout period of 2 weeks, the order of the treatments was reversed. Patients who initially received real treatment were switched to placebo and those who received placebo were given real acupuncture for 4 more weeks. Patients who received real acupuncture reported significant improvement in frequency of headaches, the duration of headaches, and intensity of pain compared to the placebo treatment. However, the effect was not observed at a 3-month follow-up.

Ng DK, et al. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of acupuncture for the treatment of childhood persistent allergic rhinitis. Pediatrics 2004;114(5):1242-1247.
Seventy-two children in Hong Kong, ages 6-20, with persistent allergic rhinitis were randomly assigned to active and sham acupuncture groups. Patients in the active group received acupuncture at three different acupoints with 1.2 ?2.4 cm needle penetration whereas those in the sham group received acupuncture at the same acupoints but to a depth of only 0.3 cm. The treatment consisted of 2 sessions of acupuncture every week for 8 weeks for both the groups. Following treatment, those in the active group had reduced symptoms of rhinitis and increased in symptom-free days. But there was no difference in use of daily relief medication, serum IgE levels, or nasal eosinophil counts. The effects of acupuncture were also short-term, lasting for 10 weeks. More studies are needed to address the frequency, intensity, and duration of acupuncture treatments and should include children from different cultural backgrounds to rule out any bias.