Acupuncture for chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue: a pilot trial

INTERVENTION: Medical Device : A study that compares treatment efficacy of an acupuncture group and a wait‐list group to which acupuncture treatment was performed 12 times for 4 weeks CONDITION: Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, NEC PRIMARY OUTCOME: Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) SECONDARY OUTCOME: A short form of Stress Response Inventory Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Males and females aged 19 to 65 2. Those with unexplained fatigue whose symptom is continuous and repetitive. 3. Those with no abnormal findings in BP, CBC (Hb, Hct, WBC, Glucose), biochemical examination (AST, ALT, and Creatinine), TFT (TSH, FT4), urinalysis (urine glucose and urine protein), chest X‐ray test, and ECG test. Abnormality criteria: DBP is 90mmHg or greater (after putting subjects at rest for more than 5 minutes, DBP was measured twice at an interval of 2 minutes or longer while they were seated and the results were averaged), Hb is smaller than 13g/dL and Hct is lower than 39% in case of a male adult while Hb is greater than 12g/dL and Hct is 36% or lower in case of a female adult, WBC is smaller than 4,500/ mm3 or 11,000/mm3 or greater, Glucose is 100mg/dL or greater, AST is 40 IU/L or greater and ALT is 40 IU/L or greater, Creatinine is 1.5mg/dL or greater, TSH is smaller than 0.27mIU/mL or 4.2mIU/mL or greater, TSH is smaller than