Effect On Serum Th1/Th2 Cytokines By Acupuncture And Moxibustion In The Patients With Perennial Allergic Rhinitis

Purpose: To observe the effects of symptoms,signs,Th1/Th2 cytokines and the imbalancestates of Th1 and Th2 cytokines in patients with perennial allergic rhinitis (PAR) byacupuncture and moxibustion, and to study the therapeutic mechanism from the objectiveevidence of the conclusions for guiding clinical practice.Method:1. Based on the strict diagnostic criteria, the exclusion and inclusion criteriaand evaluating criteria, 30 patients of PAR were treated by acupuncture andmoxibusition and 20 healthy people as the control group.2. 30 patients with PAR were treated by acupuncture on the points Yingxiang (LI20, double),Shangxin(DU23), Hegu (LI4, double) and moxibustion on the Zusanli (ST36, double), as forthe patient of deficiency of kidney-yang, do warm moxibustion on Guangyuan (CV4) for 30minutes, once every two day, two courses for 30 times.3. Measure the items on before and after the two courses of treatment respectively (onecourse for 15 days) as follows:①Syndromes Investigation: to adopt the scoring methods ofsymptoms and signs with the certain standard scoring table of symptoms and classifyingtable of signs for the patients, on the day before and after the two courses of treatmentrespectively,②Signs Investigation: the mucoma visibility, swelling or hyperemia conditions,or gloyp and polypoid change in the inferior and middle nasal conchas, nasal septum, etcwith a nasal endoscope on the day before and after the two courses of treatment respectively,③Test of the interferon-γ(IFN-γ),interleukine-4(IL-4) in serum of patients by the methodof enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) on the previous day before and after thetwo courses of treatment respectively.4. Test of the IFN-r,IL-4 in serum of the 20 healthy people by the method of ELISA. Results:1. The main symptoms and signs of patients are sneeze, discharge, nasal obstruction, nasalitching, pale and swelling nasal macosa before treatment.2. As for therapeutic effect, the symptoms and signs were greatly different before and aftertreatment, scoring decreased greatly. (P＜0.01, P＜0.05). By the statistic, the markedlyeffective rate is 76.67%, the effective rate is 20% and the total effective rate is 96.67% aftertreatment.3. Before the treatment, the levels of IL-4 of patients were significantly higher than thecontrol group(P＜0.01), but the levels of IFN-γand Th1/Th2 in them significantly lower thanit (P＜0.01). After treatment, the IL-4 level in the treated group was decreasedsignificantly(P＜0.01), the levels of IFN-γand Th1/Th2 were increased obviously(P＜0.05),and no difference was observed between the patients and the control group(P＞0.05).4. The allergic rhinitis patients' symptoms and signs were showed negative correlations withIFN-γ(r=-0.608,-0.394, P＜0.01), respectively while positive negative withIL-4 (r=0.777,0.620, P＜0.01).Conclusion:1. Acupuncture and moxibustion could recover obviously the allergic rhinitis patients'symptoms and signs, enhance the patients' ability to avoid the disease recurrency.2. The allergic rhinitis patients' symptoms and signs were showed positive correlations withIL-4, respectively while negative with IFN-γ.3. Acupuncture and moxibustion is highly effective in treating PAR by regulating the levelsof Th1/Th2 cytokines, correcting the imbalance Th1/Th2 cytokines network.4. The result indicates that the effect of acupuncture combined with moxibustion on theallergic reaction is related to modulate the function of humoral and cellular immunity.