Efficacy Of Acupuncture In Treatment Of Allergic Rhinitis And Its Immunological Mechanism

PartⅠEfficacy study on acupuncture in treatment of allergic rhinitisObjective:To observe the effect of acupuncture in the treatment of allergic rhinitis.Methods:Case-control study was carried out in 124 patients devided into 4 groups according to the different treatment randomly.30 patients as group A were treated with acupuncture alone,32 patients as group B were treated with acupuncture combined with budesonide nasal spray,33 patients as group C were treated with budesonide nasal spray alone and 29 patients were enrolled into the control—group D only treated with Saline nasal spray. Before and after treatment the clinical symptom and sign scores of different goups were calculated respectively to evaluate the curative effects.Results:The clinical symptom and sign scores of goup A, group B and group C after treatment decreased significantly compared with that before treatment respectively (P<0.05), but there was no significant differece observed in group D compared that after treatment with that before treatment (P>0.05).The difference was statistically significant compared with each other among the 4 groups after treatment (P<0.05), such as the clinical symptom and sign scores of group A lower than that of group D (10.667±3.790; 14.172±1.197), that of group C lower than that of group A (4.03±1.76; 10.667±3.790) and that of group B lower than that of group C (3.46±1.58:4.03±1.76)Conclisions:Acupuncture was effective in treating allergic rhinitis. Therapeutic effect of acupuncture combined with budesonide nasal spray for allergic rhinitis was better than that of acupuncture alone or that of budesonide nasal spray alone. PartⅡImmunological mechanism study of acupuncture in treatment of allergic rhinitisObjective:To study the influence of IL-4 and IL-5 gene expression by acupuncture in nasal immunocell in patients with allergic rhinitis.Methods:41 patients were devided into 4 groups according to the different treatment randomly.11 patients as group A were treated with acupuncture alone,10 patients as group B were treated with acupuncture combined with budesonide nasal spray,10 patients as group C were treated with budesonide nasal spray alone and 10 patients were enrolled into the control—group D only treated with Saline nasal spray. The nasal washing fluid of patients in different goups were collected both before and after treatment and real time fluorescence quantitative RT-PCR was applied to detect the expression of IL-4 and IL-5 gene of immunocell in the nasal washing fluid.Results:Respectively, the expression of IL-4 and IL-5 gene of immunocell in the nasal washing fluid of goup A, group B and group C after treatment decreased significantly compared with that before treatment (P<0.05), but there was no significant differece observed in group D compared that after treatment with that before treatment (P>0.05).The difference was statistically significant compared with each other among the 4 groups after treatment (P<0.05), while the expression of IL-4 and IL-5 gene of group A lower than that of group D (IL-4/β- actin:group A: 0.573±0.242, group D:1.191±0.337; IL-5/β-actin:group A:0.534±0.234, group D:0.801±0.244)(P<0.05), that of group C lower than that of group A (IL-4/β-actin: group C:0.371±0.155, group A:0.573±0.242; IL-5/β-actin:group C:0.333±0.175, group A:0.534±0.234) (P<0.05) and that of group B lower than that of group C (IL-4/β-actin:group B:0.133±0.034, group C:0.371±0.155; IL-5/β-actin:group B:0.129±0.038, group C:0.333±0.175) (P<0.05)Conclisions:The level of IL-4 and IL-5 gene expression can be downregulated by acupuncture treating in allergic rhinitis. The downregulating effect was more obvious by acupuncture combined with budesonide nasal spray for allergic rhinitis than that of acupuncture alone or that of budesonide nasal spray alone.