Objective: To confirm the better analgesic effect of otopoint-penetrative needling for cervical type and nerve-root type cervicospondylopathy.Methods: A total of 98 cervicospondylopathy outpatients(50 cases of cervical type and 48 cases of nerve-root type) were randomly divided into treatment group(otopoint-penetrative needling) and control group(otopoint-straight needling) in the light of paring method of comprehensive factors of sexes

ages and the state of disease.The main otopoints used were bilateral Jingzhui Area(AH 13) in combination with Jian-Jianguanjie-Suogu(Shoulder-Shoulder-joint-Collarbone) Area

etc.The simplified McGill Pain Scaling was used to give the score of patient's pain before the treatment

5 min and 30 min after the treatment.Results: Results of sequential trial indicated that the analgesic effect of otopoint-penetrative needling was significantly superior to that of otopoint-straight needling 30 min after the treatment (P<0.05).Findings of matched-pair t test showed that no marked differences were found between two groups in the pain scores before the treatment

while after the treatment

the pain scores of otopoint-penetrative needling group were significantly lower than those of otopoint-straight needling group(P<0.001

0.01)

meaning that the analgesic effect of otopoint-penetrative needling was significantly better than that of otopoint-straight needling 5 min and 30 min after the treatment in both men and women

in both cervical type and nerve-root type patients

and in both young and older patients.Conclusion: The analgesic effect of otopoint-penetrative needling is obviously superior to that of otopoint-straight needling.