Objective To explore the clinical effects of acupuncture in the treatment of cerebral infarction（CI） based on real-world data. Methods A retrospective cohort study was designed to collect data on 744 hospitalized CI patients from five hospitals including the Affiliated Hospital of Henan Academy of Chinese Medicine

the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University

Henan Provincial People′s Hospital

the First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine and Henan Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 1 st

2014 to June 30 th

2015. According to whether the patients received acupuncture or not

744 patients were divided into acupuncture group（396 cases） and non-acupuncture group（348 cases）. The confounding factors were balanced between groups by using propensity score method（PS）; the muscle strength grade and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale（NIHSS） score were analyzed before and after treatment to evaluate the effect on muscle strength. Results A total of 196 pairs of cases were matched after PS matching

and the two groups were comparable at baseline. In terms of the effect on muscle strength

the effective rates of acupuncture group and non-acupuncture group before PS matching were 73.48% and 56.61%

while those after PS matching were 82.15% and 59.18%

respectively. The effect of acupuncture group was superior to non-acupuncture group whether before or after PS matching（P<0.05）. After treatment

the NIHSS scores of the two groups both decreased

and statistically significant difference was shown in the area under the curve covariance than before treatment（P<0.05）; more changes were seen in the acupuncture group than non-acupuncture group after PS matching（P<0.01）. Conclusion Based on real-world data

it is shown that acupuncture can effectively reduce the neurological damage

improve the NIHSS score and promote the recovery of muscle strength in CI patients.