Through collecting the existing clinical evidences on acupuncture and moxibustion for urticaria, the distribution of evidence in this field was mapped. A systematic search of Chinese and English literature was conducted in CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, SinoMed, PubMed, EMbase, and Cochrane Library for treatment of urticaria with acupuncture and moxibustion, published up to December 31, 2023 since inception of each database. The research status in this field was summarized using an evidence mapping approach, and methodological quality was assessed. A total of 323 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 22 systematic reviews were included. The number of studies on acupuncture and moxibustion for urticaria has been increasing, with a significant rise in recent years. In most RCTs, the study scale was small, and the subjects focused on chronic spontaneous urticaria in adolescents and middle-aged adults, aged 14 to 60 years. Regarding the intervention measures, the single therapy of acupuncture and moxibustion was predominant such as acupoint injection, acupoint embedding thread, and filiform needling. In acupuncture with filiform needles, the commonly used acupoints were Quchi (LI11), Xuehai (SP10), Sanyinjiao (SP6), Zusanli (ST36) and Hegu (LI4). The main outcome measures referred to effectiveness rate, score of disease severity, recurrence rate, laboratory indexes, and score of quality of life; and the short-term effect was evaluated specifically. The overall methodological quality of the included studies was relatively low. It is suggested that the future research should focus on large-scale, multi-center, high-quality clinical trials, optimize the protocols for acupuncture and moxibustion intervention, standardize the outcomes, and draw the attention to the evaluation of long-term efficacy, so as to provide clinical evidences of high certainty for urticaria treated with acupuncture and moxibustion.
Humans ; Moxibustion ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Urticaria/therapy* ; Acupuncture Points ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVE: To reveal the gap between the evidence of systematic reviews (SRs) and clinical concerns by systematically summarizing the evidence on acupuncture and moxibustion for frozen shoulder and investigating the concerns and needs of clinicians in treatment with acupuncture and moxibustion for this disease. METHODS: The articles of SR and Meta-analysis on acupuncture and moxibustion for frozen shoulder were searched from CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, SinoMed, PubMed, EMbase and Cochrane Library, starting from the inception of each database up to December 31st, 2022. Two researchers screened the articles and extracted data independently. Using AMSTAR-2, the methodological quality of the included studies was evaluated. Based on systematic reviews and expert discussion, a questionnaire on clinical concerns of acupuncture and moxibustion for frozen shoulder was developed and distributed to clinicians. The discrepancies between the evidence and clinical concerns were compared from 5 dimensions, including population, interventions, control measures, outcome indicators and review time points. RESULTS: The evidence gaps existed between SRs and clinical concerns. In the existing studies, the needs of personalized treatment were not fully considered in terms of different syndromes/patterns of frozen shoulder and stages of illness, the outcome indicators were not employed properly, the time for outcome measurement was vague, the control groups were set up outside of standardization, and the methodological quality was lower. CONCLUSION It is suggested that future studies should improve the quality of methodology, lay more consideration to different patient groups, optimize outcome indicators and standardize the setting of control groups, so as to better meet the needs of patients and achieve the best match between evidence and clinicians' needs.
Humans ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Bursitis/therapy* ; Evidence Gaps ; Moxibustion ; Systematic Reviews as Topic ; Meta-Analysis as Topic

Clinical research is usually aimed at and guided by therapeutic efficacy. Clarifying the placebo effect and the nocebo effect from treatment outcomes is an important issue in clinical research. This paper reviews the meaning of the placebo effect， suggesting that factors that may produce the placebo effect in clinical practice include past experience associations， patient expectations， suggestion， and doctor-patient relationships. It also summarizes the characteristics of the nocebo effect， its influencing factors， and its impact on clinical prognosis. Combining the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine， this paper explores the design of acupuncture clinical trials that can reflect the measurement of the placebo effect， attempting to provide a clearer interpretation of the placebo effect in the evaluation of acupuncture efficacy in traditional Chinese medicine. Taking primary insomnia as an example， a prospective randomized placebo-controlled trial is designed to observe and evaluate the relationship between the treatment effects of acupuncture and the placebo effect in different patients under the treatment of the same doctor. Group comparisons will help better distinguish clinical effects in different situations. The authors also attempt to explore the responsive population to the placebo effect and the effects of placebos in different populations.

Emerging and re-emerging RNA viruses occasionally cause epidemics and pandemics worldwide, such as the on-going outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Herein, we identified two potent inhibitors of human DHODH, S312 and S416, with favorable drug-likeness and pharmacokinetic profiles, which all showed broad-spectrum antiviral effects against various RNA viruses, including influenza A virus, Zika virus, Ebola virus, and particularly against SARS-CoV-2. Notably, S416 is reported to be the most potent inhibitor so far with an EC of 17 nmol/L and an SI value of 10,505.88 in infected cells. Our results are the first to validate that DHODH is an attractive host target through high antiviral efficacy in vivo and low virus replication in DHODH knock-out cells. This work demonstrates that both S312/S416 and old drugs (Leflunomide/Teriflunomide) with dual actions of antiviral and immuno-regulation may have clinical potentials to cure SARS-CoV-2 or other RNA viruses circulating worldwide, no matter such viruses are mutated or not.
Animals ; Antiviral Agents ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Betacoronavirus ; drug effects ; physiology ; Binding Sites ; drug effects ; Cell Line ; Coronavirus Infections ; drug therapy ; virology ; Crotonates ; pharmacology ; Cytokine Release Syndrome ; drug therapy ; Drug Evaluation, Preclinical ; Gene Knockout Techniques ; Humans ; Influenza A virus ; drug effects ; Leflunomide ; pharmacology ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred BALB C ; Orthomyxoviridae Infections ; drug therapy ; Oseltamivir ; therapeutic use ; Oxidoreductases ; antagonists & inhibitors ; metabolism ; Pandemics ; Pneumonia, Viral ; drug therapy ; virology ; Protein Binding ; drug effects ; Pyrimidines ; biosynthesis ; RNA Viruses ; drug effects ; physiology ; Structure-Activity Relationship ; Toluidines ; pharmacology ; Ubiquinone ; metabolism ; Virus Replication ; drug effects

In recent years, more and more patients of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have strong desire to be treated with acupuncture. In "Effect of acupuncture and clomiphene in Chinese women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a randomized clinical trial" published in() on June 27, 2017, the finding of this research does not support acupuncture for such infertility women. The questions and doubts are proposed in the paper from the regimen of acupuncture treatment, the determination of primary outcome and the explanation of the results. It is found by comparison that the trigger point treatment in the article is different from traditional acupuncture, there is doubt in live birth rate as the primary outcome, 4-month treatment is not enough for the change of live birth rate, difference without statistic significance between acupuncture and control acupuncture does not mean invalid acupuncture because the control acupuncture is not invalid, the research and statistic method are not those planned. As a result, we consider that the conclusion is unreasonable.

Theandhave been the state-compiled textbooks of acupuncture-moxibustion in colleges and universities of TCM for nearly more than half a century, which play a regulating and guiding role for acupuncture education and to a certain extent represent the development status of this discipline. The indications included infrom 1th edition to 7th edition andfrom 1th edition to 3rd edition were analyzed in this study, which was aimed to basically reflect the current situation of acupuncture indications. As a result, it was found the inheritance and innovation of indications were both reflected in each edition of textbooks, 1/3 of which occurred repeatedly in more than half of the textbooks, and 1/3 of which occurred only once. The indications were classified by internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, dermatology, orthopedics, etc., which were not consistent with system classification of modern medicine such as digestive system, respiratory system, etc. The indications were mainly named after TCM disease names, involving only several names of western medicine diseases, which were contradicted to the names adopted from journals and literature. This inconformity of classification method and naming method between TCM and western medicine was not only a difficulty for modern acupuncture and moxibustion, but also an essential factor to hinder the development of acupuncture, therefore comparative study was needed in the future.

Objective To explore the risk factors of esophageal gastric varices in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC ) .Methods From January 2008 to November 2014 ,112 PBC patients underwent gastroscopy examination and among them 24 received liver biopsy .The correlation between esophageal gastric varices and histological stage ,age ,gender ,anti‐centromere antibodies (ACA) ,platelet (PLT ) , albumin (Alb ) , total bilirubin (TBil ) , alkaline phosphatase (ALP ) , γ‐glutamyl‐transferase (GGT ) ,aspartate‐aminotransferase (AST ) ,alanine‐aminotransferase (ALT ) ,prothrombin time (PT ) and Mayo score was analyzed .Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent risk factors predicting esophageal gastric varices in PBC patients .Results Among 112 patients with PBC ,varices was found in 62 patients (51 pure esophageal varices ,nine esophageal gastric varices and two pure gastric varices) .Among 24 patients with liver biopsy ,15 had varices (two at early histological stage Ⅰ and Ⅱ , 13 at later histological stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ ) .The ACA positive rate ,PT ,TBil and Mayo score of patients with varices were higher than those of patients without varices ;while Alb ,GGT and PLT were lower than those of patients without varices , and the differences were statistically significant (all P < 0 .01) . Multivariate Logistic regression analysis revealed that positive ACA (odds ratio (OR) = 8 .759 ,95%cofidence interval (CI) :1 .308 to 58 .637) ,Mayo score over 4 .52 (OR = 8 .941 ,95% CI :1 .145 to 69 .809) ,PLT count less than 96 .5 × 109 /L (OR = 10 .410 ,95% CI :2 .344 to 46 .224) ,TBil level over 26 .62 μmol/L(OR = 14 .348 ,95% CI :2 .945 to 69 .913) were independent risk factors predicting varices . Conclusion ACA positive ,PLT count less than 96 .5 × 109 /L ,TBil level over 26 .62 μmol/L and Mayo score over 4 .52 can help to predict esophageal gastric varices in patients with PBC .

The characteristics and academic thoughts of Chinese Acup-Mox Medicine written by YAO Tianmin during the Republic of China was studied and analyzed in this paper. The academic thoughts of this book were confluence of Chinese and western knowledge, respecting for classics culture but not stubborn, using western science and medicine without worshiping it. The main characteristics were the scientific meridian-acupoint theory, extensive acupoint selection, "qie" method of acupuncture, high recommendation on medicated thread and ironing moxibustion, reinforcing and reducing based on the meridian direction in infantile massage, using acupuncture and cream formula for surgical treatment, and creating his own acupuncture codes.
Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; Books ; history ; China ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Moxibustion ; history