| Objective:Patients who met Western medicine diagnostic criteria for lumbar disc herniation (LDH) and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnosticcriteria for LDH of cold-dampness type were randomly selected and included into this study. These patients were divided into three groups:TCM control group (Wulong decoction alone) (group 1); acupuncture group (acupuncture alone) (group 2); treatment group (Wulong decoction plus acupuncture) (group 3). Patients’ signs or symptoms, including low back pain and discomfort, lower limb numbness and pain, straight leg raising, lower limb walking ability, cold limbs tongue manifestationand vocational and daily life capacity, were observed. Based on Criteria of Diagnosis and Therapeutic Effect of Internal Diseases and Syndromes in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the differences incurative effect before and after treatment as well as the therapeutic advantages of different treatment methods were compared between the three groups by using a self-designed LDH Observation Indexes Scale.Methods:60 cases (1 case dropped out) who met TCM diagnostic criteria for lumbar disc herniation of cold-dampness type were recruited from the Acupuncture Clinic of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine from March 2014 to September 2015. According to visiting sequence, these patients were randomly divided into three groups:TCM control group (20 cases), acupuncture group (20 cases) and acupuncture+medicine group (19 cases). All patients received the basic treatment of resting on a hard bed. The TCM control group only took Wulong decoction as required, the acupuncture group received acupuncture alone, and the acupuncture+medicine group took Wulong decoction and received acupuncture. After four weeks of treatments, the scores of the self-designed LDH Observation Indexes Scale and the curative effect classification of the three groups before and after treatment were observed. The clinical data were processed by SPSS 17.0, the measurement data analysis was performed with the chi-square test, the enumeration data were compared with single factor analysis of variance, and the graded data were analyzed with Rank sun test.Results:1. General information of the patients (including gender, age and course of disease) were compared before treatment. The results found that there were no significant differences in general information between the three groups, which were comparable (P>0.05).2. Comparisons of the total scores of LDH Observation Indexes Scale of the three groups:The total LDH observation indexes score of the TCM control group before treatment were14.70±1.59, that of the acupuncture group were 14.50±2.09, and that of the acupuncture+medicine group were 14.79±1.27. Statistical analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in observation indexes score between the three groups, which were comparable (P>0.05). After four weeks of treatments, the total LDH observation indexes score of the TCM control group were12.75±1.86, that of the acupuncture group were 10.65±1.69, and that of the acupuncture+medicine group were 7.00±2.00. Intra-group comparisons showed significant differences before and after treatment (P<0.01). The scores after treatment of the three groups showed statistically significant differences (P<0.01), indicating that Wulong decoction plus acupuncture had a better analgesic effectfor patients with LDH of deficiency of cold-dampness typethan the other two groups.3. Compassions of the overall curative effects:After four weeks of treatments, among the 20 cases of the TCM group,6 cases were cured,10 cases were improved and 4 cases failed, with a total effective rate of 80%; among the 20 cases of the acupuncture group,7 cases were cured,10 cases were improved and 3 cases failed, with a total effective rate of 85%; among the 19 cases of the acupuncture+medicine group,14 cases were cured,4 cases were improved and 1 cases failed, with a total effective rate of 94.74%. Statistical analysis indicated that there was no significant difference between the TCM group and the acupuncture group, while there were significant differences between the acupuncture+medicine group and the TCM group and between theacupuncture+ medicine group and the acupuncture group (P<0.05), indicating Wulong decoction plus acupuncture had a better analgesic effect for patients with LDH of deficiency of cold-dampness type than pure TCM treatment and pure acupuncture.4. Advantages of different symptomatic treatment methods:in the TCM group, there were no differences in scores of local symptoms such as lower back pain and limb numbness before and after treatment, while systematic symptoms such as tongue manifestationwere greatly improved after treatment; in contrast to these findings, the average score of lower back pain before treatment in the acupuncture group was 2.45+0.51 and that after treatment was 0.65±0.59, indicating that acupuncture significantly improved lower back pain.Conclusions:The results of the present study confirm that the acupuncture group can effectively relieve the symptoms of leg numbness and lower back pain for patients with this disease, while the TCM group shows poor efficacy in treating local soft tissue injuries, but it has significant curative effect for systematic symptoms caused by cold-dampness. The acupuncture+medicine group combines the advantages of the two groups above andshows an outstanding analgesic effect and improvements in other subjective symptoms. This suggests that we should not be biased in the treatment for this disease in future clinical work. Acupuncture plus medicine can better give play to the features of TCM, reduce treatment frequency and improve patients’treatment compliance. |
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