title: A brief analysis of traditional chinese medical elongated needle therapy on acute spinal cord injury and its mechanism.
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.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Xiaoshan Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, Zhejiang 311200, China.
authors.forename: Mengxuan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Xiaoshan Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, Zhejiang 311200, China.
authors.forename: Rongliang
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Xiaoshan Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, Zhejiang 311200, China.
authors.forename: Renfu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Quan
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 31012, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Xiaoshan Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, Zhejiang 311200, China.
authors.forename: Jinwei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Medical College of Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
authors.forename: Zhongbao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Medical College of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310009, China.
authors.forename: Disheng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yang