BACKGROUND: Treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) with herbs-partition moxibustion is of good intervenient effect, whether the effect is related to neutrophil apoptosis in the pathogenic process of UC?OBJECTIVE: To investigate the changes of neutrophil appptosis rate of rats with UC and the regulative effect of medicinal cake moxibustion. DESIGN: A randomized controlled trial based on SD rats.SETTING: Shanghai Research Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian.MATERIALS: The experiment was completed from August 2002 to June 2003. A total of 30 healthy male SD rats of clean grade, weighing (140±20) g,provided by Experimental Animal Center of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, were at random divided into 2 groups: model building group (n=20) and normal control group (n=10).METHODS: Rat UC models were set up with immunological method. After the models were successively set up, four model rats and two normal rats were randomly selected for pathological observation of distal colon tissue. The rest models were divided as model group and herbs-partition moxibustion group with 8 rats for each, and the rest 8 normal rats were taken as control group. The rats of herbs-partition moxibustion group were given herbs-partition moxibustion at tian shu (ST-25) of both sides and qi hai (CV-6) points; the herbs cones was made from Radix Aeoniti Praeparata,Cortex Cinnamoni, and so on. About 90 mg moxa cone was put on the herbs cones for moxibustion, once a day, for 10 times. After treatment, all rats of the three group were executed, then the peripheral monocytes were isolated for cell culture. A 1:50 diluted supernatants of each group were taken, and the same volume of RPMI-1640 culture fluid was used as blank control group. They were respectively incubated together with neutrophils of peripheral blood of normal rats. The neutrophil apoptosis rates were measured by using flow cytometry.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Comparison of neutrophil apoptosis rates of rats in each group.RESULTS: Totally 20 rats in model group and 10 in normal control group were accepted. Then 4 rats in model group and 2 in normal group were sacrificed and observed with tissue pathology, and 16 and 8 rats entered the final analysis in model and normal control groups respectivelly. ① The neutrophil apoptosis rate of UC rats was significantly lower that that of rats in blank control group [(16.34±2.80) ％, (52.33±9.94) ％, q= -35.99, P＜ 0.01]; but there was no significant diffenence between normal control group [(48.79±11.33) ％] and blank control group, (P＞0.05). ② After treatment the neutrophil apoptosis rate of herbs-partition moxibustion group [(36.03±8.31) ％] was significantly higher than that of UC model group (q=19.69, P ＜ 0.01), but it was still lower than that of normal control group (q= -16.30, P ＜ 0.05).CONCLUSION: One of the main mechanism for herbs-partition moxibustion to treat UC might be regulating and/or reducing the inhibited state of neutrophil apoptosis in UC.