Vet World Vol.18 January-2025 Article - 7
Systematic Review
Veterinary World, 18(1): 60-66
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2025.60-66
Effectiveness of acupuncture for equine laminitis: Systematic review and meta-analysis
2. Research Group of Animal Biomedical and Conservation, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Universitas Airlangga, Banyuwangi, East Java, 68425, Indonesia.
3. Department of Veterinary Surgery and Radiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia.
4. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Eskisehir, 26040, Türkiye.
5. Department of Biology, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Eskisehir, 26040, Türkiye.
Background and Aim: In the past 20 years, acupuncture has been utilized as an alternative therapy for equine laminitis despite a lack of clinical evidence to support its effectiveness. Information from previous studies needs to be evaluated holistically to verify the effectiveness of acupuncture. This meta-analysis aimed to comprehensively investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for laminitis in horses.
Materials and Methods: A total of 7 studies out of 145 were selected in the PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and ProQuest databases using the keywords “equine laminitis,” “acupuncture,” “horses,” and “lameness score.” Articles were selected following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis flow diagram, and the extracted data were analyzed using OpenMEE software to determine Hedges’ d effect size and Log Odds Ratio.
Results: As a result, this meta-analysis study reported that acupuncture improves horses with laminitis (Odds Ratio = 2.254; 95% CI = 1.167–4.355) and has a favorable effect on lameness scores (mean difference = −5.008; 95% CI = −8.094–−1.923).
Conclusion: This meta-analysis enhanced the clinical studies demonstrating that twice-weekly acupuncture performed for 4 weeks consecutively can ameliorate lameness scores and a horse’s potential for recovery. These investigations have led to the implementation of dry needling, hemo-acupuncture, aqua-acupuncture, and electroacupuncture as alternate treatments for equine laminitis.
Keywords: acupuncture, domesticated animals, equine laminitis, horse, meta-analysis
How to cite this article: Fikri F, Purnomo A, Maslamama ST, and Purnama MTE (2025) Effectiveness of acupuncture for equine laminitis: Systematic review and meta-analysis, Veterinary World, 18(1): 60-66.
Received: 2024-08-09 Accepted: 2024-12-09 Published online: 2025-01-09
Corresponding author: E-mail:
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2025.60-66
Copyright: Fikri, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
