This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Paul F. M. Nogier, MD
Lyon, France

JAMA. 1984;252(14):1855-1856.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

At the request of my American colleagues, I offer my opinion on the article by Melzack and Katz¹ published in the Feb 24 issue of THE JOURNAL. I have serious reservations about the technique used in this study as well as the proposed conclusions.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate auriculotherapy in patients suffering from chronic pain.

It has not been shown in the work by Melzack and Katz how long the patients had been suffering from pain. One may suppose that these chronic conditions had existed for many years or at least several months.

We know that chronic pain, although perceived in specific sites, also affects more central zones of the nervous system, such as the periaqueductal gray matter, the lateroventroposterior nucleus of the thalamus, and the cortex. These were mentioned only as some of the more important parts.

Thus, the points of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?