Individualized Homeopathic Medicines in the Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis

Cervical spondylosis (CS) is a general term for wear and tear affecting the spinal disks in the neck. As these disks age, they shrink and signs of osteoarthritis can develop, including bony projections along the edges of bones (bone spurs). CS is very common and worsens with age. About 85% of people over 60 are affected by cervical spondylosis. For most of them, it causes no symptoms. When symptoms do occur, non-surgical treatments often are effective. I think there are not many so-called alternative treatments that are not being promoted as effective for CS – often with the support of some lousy clinical trials. Homeopathy does not seem to be an exception.

This trial attempted evaluating the efficacy of individualized homeopathic medicines (IHMs) against placebos in the treatment of CS.

A 3-month, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted at the Organon of Medicine outpatient department of the National Institute of Homoeopathy, India. Patients were randomized to receive either IHMs (n = 70) or identical-looking placebos (n = 70) in the mutual context of concomitant conservative and standard physiotherapeutic care. Primary outcome measures were 0-10 Numeric Rating Scales (NRSs) for pain, stiffness, numbness, tingling, weakness, and vertigo, and the secondary outcome was the Neck Disability Index (NDI), measured at baseline and every month until 3 months. The intention-to-treat sample was analyzed to detect group differences and effect sizes.

Overall, improvements were clinically significant and higher in the IHM group than in the placebo group, but group differences were statistically nonsignificant with small effect sizes (all p > 0.05, two-way repeated measure analysis of variance). After 2 months of time points, improvements observed in the IHM group were significantly higher than placebo on a few occasions (e.g., pain NRS: p < 0.001; stiffness NRS: p = 0.024; weakness NRS: p = 0.003). Sulfur (n = 21; 15%) was the most frequently prescribed medication. No harm, unintended effects, or any serious adverse events were reported from either group.

The authors concluded that an encouraging but nonsignificant direction of effect was elicited favoring IHMs against placebos in the treatment of CS.

I agree that it is encouraging that Indian homeopaths have recently dared to publish also negative findings! However, I do not agree that the findings are encouraging in the sense that they indicate anything other than that homeopathy is a placebo therapy.

Unfortunately, I cannot access the full article without paying for it. Thus I am unable to provide detailed criticism of this study – sorry.