Chronic jaw joint disease, acupuncture treatment is more economical than physical therapy
Feb 25, 2025
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As a result, a paper evaluating the cost-effectiveness of oriental medicine treatment for chronic jaw joint disease has recently been published, drawing attention.
There have been many studies examining the effectiveness of oriental medicine treatment on jaw joint disease, but studies examining the economic feasibility of treatment have been insufficient.
A research team led by Kim Du-ri, head of the Clinical Research Center at Jaseng Oriental Medicine Hospital (Hospital Director Lee Jin-ho), announced that they published a research paper analyzing the economic feasibility of self-medication in the SCI(E)-level international journal `Journal of Oral Rehabitation (IF=3.1).'
Jaw joint disease is a disease with symptoms such as pain and opening disorders due to structural and functional problems in the root of the root and surrounding tissues. Physical therapy such as thermal therapy and percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is mainly used for the disease, and in oriental medicine, integrated treatment such as acupuncture, herbal acupuncture, and Chuna therapy is performed.
In particular, herbal acupuncture is a treatment that combines the principles of acupuncture and herbal medicine, and maximizes the treatment effect by injecting herbal medicine ingredients into the acupuncture point. Among them, Zaha's herbal acupuncture is a treatment that dilutes and purifies placenta (Zaha's) extract, and it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and nerve regeneration effects, showing excellent efficacy in improving jaw joint diseases.
The study was conducted on 82 patients with chronic jaw joint disease with unilateral or bilateral jaw joint pain lasting more than 3 months. Participants in the study were divided into an acupuncture treatment group and a physical treatment group and received treatment twice a week for 5 weeks, a total of 10 times. The patients' visual pain scale (VAS; 0-100) was 58.9 on average in the physical therapy group before treatment and 59.2 in the acupuncture treatment group, TENS in the physical therapy group, and Zaha or acupuncture treatment in the acupuncture treatment group were treated with the same frequency.
After that, the research team evaluated economic feasibility by comparing and analyzing not only the medical costs of patients but also the loss of productivity due to poor work performance, disability in daily life, and absenteeism through 26 weeks of follow-up observation.
As a result, self-medication treatment has a higher quality-adjusted life year (QALY) and a lower cost of treatment than physical therapy, making it a more economical treatment. QALY is a concept that considers quality of life and life at the same time, meaning perfect health status is 1 and death is 0. After follow-up, the QALY value of the acupuncture treatment group was 0.853 and the physical treatment group was 0.838, leading the acupuncture treatment group.
In addition, as a result of analyzing all costs incurred by jaw joint disease, it was confirmed that the acupuncture treatment group cost about 4,088,830 won less per person from a social point of view than the physical treatment group. From a social point of view, the cost includes all costs of productivity loss, such as absenteeism and reduced work efficiency due to jaw joint disease.
In the health care perspective, which calculated only medical costs, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was about 8,457,930 won, even though the treatment cost was higher than that of physical therapy. On top of that, assuming that the Willingness to pay (WTP) to obtain 1 QALY was about 30.5 million won, the probability that herbal acupuncture treatment would be more cost-effective than physical therapy in treating jaw joint disease was more than 99%.
"This study is the first paper to prove that self-help or acupuncture treatment for chronic jaw joint disease has advantages in terms of economy," said Kim Du-ri, head of the Clinical Research Center at Jaseng Oriental Medicine Hospital. "We hope that it can be used as a useful basis for future research on health care policies and treatments."
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
