World Health Organization (WHO) Recommended Conditions that can be Treated by Acupuncture:

1. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved – through controlled trials – to be an effective treatment:

• Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
• Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
• Biliary colic
• Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
• Dysentery, acute bacillary
• Dysmenorrhoea, primary
• Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
• Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
• Headache
• Hypertension, essential Hypotension, primary
• Induction of labour
• Knee pain
• Leukopenia
• Low back pain
• Malposition of fetus, correction of Morning sickness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Neck pain
• Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
• Periarthritis of shoulder
• Postoperative pain
• Renal colic
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sciatica
• Sprain
• Stroke
• Tennis elbow

2. Diseases, symptoms and conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown, but for which further proof is needed:

• Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
• Acne vulgaris
• Alcohol dependence and detoxification
• Bell’s palsy
• Bronchial asthma
• Cancer pain
• Cardiac neurosis
• Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation
• Cholelithiasis
• Competition stress syndrome
• Craniocerebral injury, closed
• Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent
• Earache
• Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
• Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
• Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection
• Female infertility
• Facial spasm
• Female urethral syndrome
• Fibromyalgia and fasciitis
• Gastrokinetic disturbance
• Gouty arthritis
• Hepatitis B virus carrier status
• Herpes zoster (human (alpha) herpesvirus 3)
• Hyperlipaemia
• Hypo-ovarianism
• Insomnia
• Labour pain
• Lactation, deficiency
• Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic
• Ménière disease
• Neuralgia, post-herpetic
• Neurodermatitis
• Obesity
• Opium, cocaine and heroin dependence
• Osteoarthritis Pain due to endoscopic examination
• Pain in thromboangiitis obliterans
• Polycystic ovary syndrome (Stein–Leventhal syndrome) Postextubation in children
• Postoperative convalescence
• Premenstrual syndrome
• Prostatitis, chronic
• Pruritus
• Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
• Raynaud syndrome, primary
• Recurrent lower urinary-tract infection
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
• Retention of urine, traumatic
• Schizophrenia
• Sialism, drug-induced
• Sjögren syndrome
• Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
• Spine pain, acute
• Stiff neck
• Temporomandibular joint dysfunction
• Tietze syndrome
• Tobacco dependence
• Tourette syndrome
• Ulcerative colitis, chronic
• Urolithiasis
• Vascular dementia
• Whooping cough (pertussis)

​3. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which there are only individual controlled trials reporting some therapeutic effects, but which acupuncture is worth trying because treatment by conventional and other therapies is difficult:

• Chloasma
• Choroidopathy, central serous
• Colour blindness
• Deafness
• Hypophrenia Irritable colon syndrome
• Neuropathic bladder in spinal cord injury
• Pulmonary heart disease, chronic
• Small airway obstruction

4. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture may be tried provided the practitioner has special modern knowledge and adequate monitoring equipment:

• Breathlessness in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 
• Coma 
• Convulsions in infants 
• Coronary heart disease (angina pectoris) 
• Diarrhoea in infants and young children 
• Encephalitis, viral, in children, late stage 
• Paralysis, progressive bulbar and pseudobulbar