This paper presents an automatic acquisition and analytic procedure of acupuncture manipulation based on optical navigation, aiming at solving the shortcomings of existing acquisition methods of acupuncture manipulation. An acquisition holder installed at the handle tail of filiform needle was designed to display the movement trajectory of the needle during acupuncture delivery by collecting the movement trajectory of holder. The 3-month old male Bama miniature pig was selected as the experimental subject, and 6 points, "Bojian" "Qiangfeng" "Housanli" "Xiaokua" "Huiyang" (BL35) and "Baihui" (GV20), were selected during acupuncture manipulation. The optical navigation system was used to collect the real-time data, and these data were per-processed and analyzed using mean filtering and Fourier transform. The acupuncture procedure was divided into 3 stages, inserting, lifting-thrusting, and twisting. The results showed that the accuracy was 96.3% at lifting-thrusting stage, and that was 100.0% at twisting stage. The decomposition effect of the entire procedure was satisfactory. This study provides a new approach to the quantitative analysis of acupuncture manipulation. In the future, it needs to further optimize the algorithm and expand the sample size so as to improve the accuracy of this analytic technique.
Acupuncture Therapy/methods* ; Male ; Animals ; Swine ; Acupuncture Points ; Humans ; Swine, Miniature ; Needles

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the performance of a newly developed intelligent acupuncture robot that simulates human manual acupuncture techniques through an animal experiment using miniature pigs. METHODS: Two 3-month-old Bama miniature pigs were selected. One pig was used for the manual needling techniques of the practitioner, and the other pig was used for the intelligent acupuncture robot. The acupoints selected were "Qiangfeng" "Bojian" "Xiaokua" "Huiyang" (BL 35) and "Baihui" (GV 20), with a straight insertion depth of 25-35 mm. The manipulation techniques, including lifting-thrusting and twisting at a frequency of 90 times/min, were applied for 1 min, with 30 s each for lifting-thrusting (10 mm amplitude) and twisting (180° angle). The practitioner's needling techniques were captured using an optical motion capture system, and the collected data were input into the intelligent acupuncture robot for replication on the second miniature pig. A complete needling session of five acupoints was considered one round, and three rounds were performed per session, every other day, for a total of five sessions, completing 15 rounds. The Fréchet distance method was used to compare the robot's replicated needling data with the practitioner's data, and curve fitting analysis was conducted to evaluate the robot's performance and precision. RESULTS: The intelligent acupuncture robot achieved a total completion rate of 96.00% for 75 needling operations, with a non-completion rate of 4.00%. The robot's replication of the practitioner's needling techniques showed a good fit, with many characteristic points overlapping. The average Fréchet distance was 18.67. The Fréchet distance for the lifting-thrusting and twisting techniques at Baihui (GV 20) and "Huiyang" (BL 35) acupoints was smaller than that at "Xiaokua" and "Qiangfeng" points (P<0.01). The accuracy of the lifting-thrusting technique at "Xiaokua" and "Qiangfeng" acupoints was lower than the twisting technique (P<0.01). CONCLUSION The intelligent acupuncture robot is able to replicate the pre-recorded manual needling parameters with a high degree of accuracy.
Animals ; Swine ; Swine, Miniature ; Acupuncture Therapy/methods* ; Robotics/instrumentation* ; Humans ; Acupuncture Points ; Female ; Male

Vertebral hemangiomas are common spinal benign tumors.Most of them are asymptomatic and require no treatment.A few of these symptoms require conservative or surgical treatment.Surgical treatment of the current standard uniform is inconclusive,including percutaneous radiofrequency ablation,percutaneous arterial embolization,percutaneous vertebroplasty,posterior decompression,reconstruction of vertebral fusion and the combined use of various surgical techniques.With the progress of medical technology,minimally invasive surgery and multi-operation combined treatment of symptomatic vertebral hemangioma have been paid more and more attention.

Objective To study the antitumor effect of new photodynamic therapy (PDT) applying TMPyP4 combined with nucleolin silence on cervical cancer SiHa cells in vitro, and to explore an available combination treatment project for cervical cancer.Methods The SiHa Cells were divided into blank control group, RNAi group,PDT group and PDT-RNAi group.The proliferation activities of SiHa cells were assessed by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8)assay.The apoptotic rates were measured by flow cytometry (FCM)with Annexin Ⅴ/PI staining. The invasiveness abilities were assessed by Transwell assay. Results Compared with blank control group, the inhibitory rates of growth of SiHa cells in RNAi group, PDT group and PDT-RNAi group were increased significantly (P<0.01);the inhibitory rates of growth of SiHa cells in PDT-RNAi group were higher than those in PDT group and RNAi group (P<0.05 ). The Q value was 1.27. Compared with blank control group, the apoptotic rates of SiHa cells in experiment groups were increased (P<0.05 ), and the late apoptotic rate in PDT-RNAi group was also increased;there were significant differences of the apoptotic rates between PDT-RNAi group and RNAi group, PDT group (P<0.05 ). Compared with blank control group, the cell invasiveness abilities of SiHa cells in experiment groups were decreased;there were significant differences of the invasiveness abilities of SiHa cells between PDT group and RNAi group (P<0.05).Conclusion New PDT shows a strong photodynamic effect on the SiHa cells,which can inhibit the proliferation and invasiveness and induce the apoptosis of SiHa cells invitro;nucleolin silence shows a good synergy effect to PDT.