A Brief Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medical Elongated Needle Therapy on Acute Spinal Cord Injury and Its Mechanism. (24th November 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Du, Mengxuan; Chen, Rongliang; Quan, Renfu; Zhang, Liang; Xu, Jinwei; Yang, Zhongbao; Yang, Disheng
• Other Names: Chen Calvin Yu-Chian Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine. Volume 2013(2013)
• Publication Date: 2013-11-24
• Subjects: Alternative medicine -- Periodicals; 615.505
• DOI: 10.1155/2013/828754
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1741-427X

Abstract

Abstract : Acute spinal cord injury is one of the most common and complicated diseases among human spinal injury. We aimed to explore the effect of point-through-point acupuncture therapy with elongated needles on acute spinal cord injury in rabbits and its possible mechanism. Adult rabbits were randomly divided into a model group, elongated needle therapy group, and blank group. Immunohistochemical staining showed that the protein levels of Fas and caspase-3 in the model group were significantly higher than those in the blank group at each time point (P < 0.05 ) and significantly lower than those in the elongated needle therapy group on the 3rd and 5th days after operation (P < 0.05 ). RT-PCR showed that Fas and caspase-3 mRNA levels in the model group and elongated needle therapy group were significantly higher than those in the blank group (P < 0.05, 0.01). The mRNA levels of Fas and caspase-3 in the elongated needle therapy group were significantly lower than those in model group on the 3rd day (P < 0.05, 0.01). Therefore, we confirmed that elongated needle therapy has an obvious effect on acute spinal cord injury in rabbits. Its mechanism is made possible by inhibiting the expression of the Fas→caspase-3 cascade, thereby inhibiting cell apoptosis after spinal cord injury.