This study aimed to test the efficacy of cupping therapy to improve symptoms and quality of life in patients diagnosed with the fibromyalgia syndrome. Participants were randomly assigned to cupping therapy, sham or usual care. Cupping was administered five times at twice weekly intervals on the upper and lower back. The primary outcome measure was pain intensity at day 18. Secondary outcomes included functional disability, quality of life, fatigue and sleep quality as well as pressure pain sensitivity, satisfaction and safety at day 18 and 6 months. Altogether 141 patients were included in this study (139 females, 55.8 ± 9.1 years). After 18 days patients reported significant less pain after cupping compared to usual care (difference -12.4; 95% CI: -18.9; -5.9, p < 0.001) but not compared to sham (difference -3.0; 95% CI: -9.9, 3.9, p = 0.396). Further effects were found for quality of life compared to usual care. Patients were mildly satisfied with cupping and sham cupping; and only minor side effects were observed. Despite cupping therapy being more effective than usual care to improve pain intensity and quality of life, effects of cupping therapy were small and comparable to those of a sham treatment, and as such cupping cannot be recommended for fibromyalgia at the current time.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 34. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 April 2026.
All research outputs
#1,473,187
of 34,307,719 outputs
Outputs from Scientific Reports
#14,716
of 183,320 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#22,076
of 455,109 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific Reports
#324
of 3,766 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,307,719 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 183,320 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 455,109 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3,766 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
