Observation Of Acupuncture Treatment Of Allergic Rhinitis

BackgroundIn the recent years,air pollution has become an increasingly serious problem due to rapid industrialization;as a result,the incidence of allergic rhinitis is also on the rise.Treatment of allergic rhinitis with western medicine has its adverse effects while long-term use of intranasal steroid spray although effective,does not come cheap.Acupuncture,on the other hand,has been shown to be a reliable and cost-effective method of treatment.To date,there has not been any study carried out on treatment of allergic rhinitis with electro-acupuncture with ear acupuncture using RQLQ to evaluate the clinical response,so I have designed such a study with symptomatic score as the other measure of clinical efficacy.ObjectiveTo observe the clinical response of acupuncture on allergic rhinitis as well as its effect on RQLQ.MethodA prospective study on allergic rhinitis patients in Tsuen Wan district in Hong Kong.62 patients were divided into 2 groups based on their treatment of choice,43 patients in the treatment group chose to receive acupuncture while 19 patients in the control group opted for Flixonase nasal spray.The subjects were evaluated before treatment,after completion of the course of treatment and after 3 months follow-up using symptomatic score as the main evaluation method and RQLQ as the secondary evaluation method.ResultOf the 62 enrolled subjects,there were no fall-out due to adverse events. Based on symptomatic score,the overall effectiveness rate in the short term for the treatment group was 93.02%compared with 63.26%in the control group(p＜0.01).The overall effectiveness rate on long-term follow-up was significantly better in the treatment group compared with control group.With RQLQ,there was no significant difference in the outcome for treatment and control groups both in the short and long-term.Among the various domains in the RQLQ,there was significant improvement only in the emotion domain(p＜0.05) and no significant difference in the other 4 domains.ConclusionElectro-acupuncture with ear acupuncture is an effective and safe treatment method for allergic rhinitis.