Clinical And Experimental Study Of TongBiLing On Treating Ankylosing Spondylitis

ObjectiveUsing TongBiLing developed by The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine on treating Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) patients, and compare to those treated by anti-inflammation drug (celecoxib) to observe the improvement/differences of clinical symptoms and laboratory parameters between pre-treatment and post-treatment. Through evaluating effects of TongBiLing in Collagen Antibody-Induced Arthritis rats serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α, discuss the pharmacology of TongBiLing on treating AS, pathomechanism of the disease, and evaluate the lately therapeutic effect of the drug.MethodsClinical researchFifty patients that were in line with the 1984 Modified New York AS Classification Criteria were recruited from The First Affiliated Hospital's Orthopeadics Out-patient department of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. All of sellected cases were randomly divided into two groups including the study group and the positive control group, 25 patients in each group. Oral drug for 12 weeks, every 4 weeks for a course of treatment.We evaluated pre-treated and pos-treated conditions by back pain score, time of axial morning stiffness (ankylosis), general function, Schober's test, distance from middle-finger to floor, chest expanding activity, ESR and CRP.Experimental studyCollagen-induced arthritis (CIA) Wistar rats model were established by subcutaneous injection the complex of Bonvine Type II Collagen emulsified with Incomplete Freund's Adjuvant. The experimental rats were randomly divided into five treated groups. Serum IL-6 and TNF-αlevels of rats were assayed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. ResultsClinical observations showed that the two groups in addition to the distance from middle-finger to floor index, the other clinical indices and laboratory parameters before and after treatment were significantly different (P <0.01, P <0.05). But there was no significant difference beetwen two groups at the pos-treatment of the control rate, the total efficiency rate and the other clinical indices and laboratory parameters.The experimental results showed that, serum IL-6 and TNF-αlevels of rats in treated groups were significantly lower than the model group (P <0.01, P <0.05), moreover serum IL-6 and TNF-αlevels at high-dose of TongBiLing group and celecoxib group were more decreased.ConclusionThe results of this study indicated that, the effect of TongBiLing and anti-inflammatory drugs (celecoxib) on treating AS were similar, including the effects of anti-inflammation and elimination inflammatory mediators, improving clinical symptoms, signs and laboratory indices, that showed the lately therapeutic effect of the drug. Experimetal study showed that TongBiLing can regulated introduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6, TNF-αlevels, suggesting that the drug could inhibit progression of collagen-induced arthritis condition.