PubMed was searched from January 2011 to November 2013 to identify RCTs of manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, and laser acupuncture where sham or placebo device or procedure was used for control group. No language restriction was imposed. For the RCTs predating 2011, we adopted a list of included studies in another systematic review of randomized, placebo-controlled trials of acupuncture with blinding evaluation data, published in English between 1985 and 2011 .