Clinical Study of Acupotomy for Knee Osteoarthritis Based on the Meridian-Sinew Theory: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Table 3

Repeated measures of VAS and WOMAC in patients with different constitution of traditional Chinese medicine ().

Subgroup		Baseline	Week 2	Week 4	Week 8	Week 12	Ftime ()	Fgroup ()	Ftime∗group ()
VAS	Yin-Yang harmony	5.1 ± 1.5	3.8 ± 1.0	3.3 ± 1.1	3.3 ± 1.1	3.3 ± 1.1	31.27 (<0.01)	1.86 (0.16)	0.83 (0.58)
	Yang deficiency	4.7 ± 1.5	3.6 ± 1.6	3.0 ± 1.5	3.0 ± 1.1	2.9 ± 1.2
	Others	5.0 ± 1.5	4.2 ± 1.9	3.5 ± 1.6	3.4 ± 1.3	3.2 ± 1.3
WOMAC	Yin-Yang harmony	15.4 ± 11.5	7.0 ± 5.5	5.4 ± 5.5	5.1 ± 5.0	4.3 ± 4.7	28.22 (<0.01)	0.94 (0.40)	0.78 (0.62)
	Yang deficiency	19.6 ± 13.9	11.0 ± 11.9	7.1 ± 10.2	5.3 ± 8.7	4.5 ± 7.9
	Others	17.4 ± 12.6	10.6 ± 10.8	7.1 ± 8.2	5.4 ± 7.1	4.4 ± 6.9

VAS, visual analog scale/score; VAS pain score, 0–10; lower score = better outcome. WOMAC pain score, 0–20. It was assessed with the following five items: pain during walking, stair climbing, resting, weight bearing, and pain at night. Each subscale used the following descriptors: none (0 points), mild (1 point), moderate (2 points), severe (3 points), and extreme (4 points).