Acupuncture needle caused cardiac perforation, a rare complication of acupuncture

An acupuncture needle caused cardiac perforation in a 51-year-old female due to the needle left on the body following acupuncture session, according to a report published in the European Heart Journal.

Dr. O. Wigger and colleagues in the Bern University hospital, Switzerland reported a case of complication of acupuncture, in which a 51-year-old female was admitted into the hospital due to the ongoing chest pain and dyspnoea. Although ECG did not show significant changes a coronary angiography showed a needle-shaped foreign body projecting on the left ventricle. Computed tomography confirmed a presence of a needle-shaped radiopaque structure perforating the left ventricle and protruding into the left lower lobe of the lung. After discussing the finding of potential cause of symptoms patients immediately mentioned an acupuncture treatment for her chronic musculo-skeletal pain by an unprofessional and close friend.

Cardiac surgery was immediately performed including evacuation of haemothrax, completely removal of the needle. Patient recovered quickly from operation and was discharged 4 days after surgery.

This report warned us that nerve seek any acupuncture treatment from any unprofessional, non-qualified acupuncturist.

Reference:

O Wigger et al., Cardiac perforation as a rare complication of acupuncture. Eur Heart J. 2015 May 20. pii: ehv171.   http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehv171

Acupuncture improves symptoms of patients with restless legs syndrome

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder, as individuals are forced to move their legs in order to gain relieve from symptoms. Acupuncture is reported to have improved symptoms of RLS according to a report published in the journal of Evidence-Based Complimentary and Alternative Medicine.

RLS is also sometimes called Willis-Ekbom syndrome after the doctor who first described the condition in 1945. RLS causes an irresistible urge to move one’s legs, occasionally arms, to stop uncomfortable or odd feeling, often as creeping or crawling sensation. Symptoms occur primarily at the night when a person is relaxing or at rest and can increase in severity during the night and make it difficult to get to sleep. This can have a knock-on effect of causing poor sleep and tiredness next day. There are two types of RLS, one is called primary RLS and runs in families. Another is called secondary RLS caused by some underlying conditions such as kidney failure or iron deficiency anaemia. Treatment normally depends whether there is an underlying cause, if the underlying cause is identified treatment of the cause also will cure the RLS. If the cause of RLS is unclear treatment includes life style changes and medication e.g. dopamine agonists, painkiller and many more. 

A group of scientists from China and Japan carried out a single-blind clinical study to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture on RLS. Thirty-one patients with RLS were recruited for the studies and were divided into standard acupuncture group (n=15) and randomized acupuncture group (n=16). Patients in former group were given acupuncture at acupoints BL23, DU4, SP10, BL57, LR3, ST36, SP6 and KI3 for 30 min, 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Patients in later group were applied acupuncture at sham acupoints. Evaluation included nocturnal activity and early sleep activity using leg actigraph recordings which provides objective assessment; International Restless Legs Syndrome Rating Scale, and Epworth Sleepiness Scale which are subjective assessments  between week 0 (baseline), week 2, week 4, and week 6. It was found that standard acupuncture treatment significantly reduced abnormal leg activity in week 2, 4 and 6 compared with base line and sham acupuncture group judged by all parameters mentioned above. This suggested that quality of sleep was improved as well.

The authors suggest that acupuncture could a potentially suitable therapy for RLS.

Reference:

Pan W et al., Actigraph evaluation of acupuncture for treating restless legs syndrome. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Volume 2015, Article ID 343201, 7 pages.   http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2015/343201/

Acupuncture is an effective and safe treatment for patients with nerve deafness

Nerve deafness is one type of hearing loss. A recent study analysed 12 clinical trials of acupuncture treatment for nerve deafness and found that acupuncture can significantly improve the hearing of patients with nerve deafness. The study is published in the International Journal of Clinical Experimental and Medicine.

Nerve deafness, also known as sensorineural hearing deafness, is a type of hearing loss.  It occurs from damage to inner ear, auditory nerve that runs from the ear to the brain or the brain. The inner part of the ear contains tiny hair cells (nerve endings), that change sound into the electric signals. Then the nerves carry the signals into the brain. Nerve deafness is caused by damage to these special cells or to the nerve fibres in the inner ear and to the nerve that carries the signal to the brain and brain regions relevant to hearing. Many factors are linked to the nerve deafness such as genetic syndromes, aging, infection, injury, loud noise and many more. Nerve deafness is manifested by progressive hearing impairment at different levels, even deaf accompanied with tinnitus and sensation of intra-aural occlusion. Although the hearing aids can improve hearing the treatments depend on the underlying cause of condition.

Recently Dr. Y Jiang and colleagues in China conducted a systematic evaluation of efficacy and safety of acupuncture treatment for nerve deafness. They carried out a literature search about acupuncture therapy and nerve deafness from many scientific data bases and selected 12 randomized controlled clinical studies according to a set of criteria. They analysed the data of 527 patients by using a meta-analysis method. It was found that overall efficacy of acupuncture therapy was significantly better than that of the conventional Western medicine and better than that of traditional Chinese herb medicine. When acupuncture was combined with either Western medicine or herb medicine the synergetic effect was superior to the medication alone.

Reference:

Jiang Y et al., Efficacy and safety of acupuncture therapy for nerve deafness: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Int J Clin Exp Med 2015;8(2):2614-2620.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4402856/

Recent development in acupuncture for Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia in the elderly people and is associated with progressive loss of memory and cognitive function. Because the cause of Alzheimer’s is unclear there is no cure for the condition.

Acupuncture has been used to improve memory and cognitive function in China for a long time and got increasingly attention around the world due to its well tolerance and minor side effect. However, the mechanism of acupuncture and its effectiveness on Alzheimer’s is not clear due to lack of scientific studies. Here some recent development of acupuncture from both basic research and clinical studies are summarized.

Recent search reports showed that acupuncture stimulation at DU20 and BL23 acupoints 30 min a day for 18 days with a rest every 7 days improved learning and memory function in Alzheimer’s model compared with control. Biochemical studies revealed that acupuncture stimulation suppressed the apoptosis, a cell death process in the hippocampus region, a vulnerable brain area to Alzheimer’s. Acupuncture decreased apoptosis enhancing molecules and increased apoptosis resistant molecules in the Alzheimer’s model brain which was not seen in the control. In another study, scientists looked the changes in neuronal activity of different brain regions using functional brain imaging technique – positron emission tomography (PET). They found that acupuncture stimulation at ST36 acupoint showed greater activity in the brain regions such as hippocampus, amygdalae and temporal lobe that are linked with memory and cognitive function. However stimulation at a sham acupoint showed increased activity in different brain areas.

A clinical acupuncture study showed that the patients with Alzheimer’s were given acupuncture at GV24, GV20, GB20, GB12, CV17, CV12, CV6, SP10 and ST36 and the other acupoints depending on the symptoms and physical signs, once a day, 6 days a week and 4 weeks as a session for total 4 sessions. In the control group, donepezil, a acetycholinesterase inhibitor, was given for the same time period. The minimum mental state examination (MMSE), the activity of daily living scale (ADL), Alzheimer's disease assessment scale-cognition (ADAS-cog) and the digit span (DS) were monitored before treatment and assessed again after treatment. It was found that both acupuncture and drug treatment improved the MMSE, ADL and DS scores, decreased ADAS-cog scores compared with the scores recorded before treatment. The study showed that acupuncture treatment has the same effect as the drug treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s, without side-effects.

References:

Guo HD et al., Electroacupuncture Suppressed Neuronal Apoptosis and Improved Cognitive Impairment in the AD Model Rats Possibly via Downregulation of Notch Signaling Pathway. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2015, Article ID 393569, 9 pages.  http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2015/393569/

Lu Y et al., Brain areas involved in the acupuncture treatment of AD model rats: a PET study. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2014, 14:178.   http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/14/178

Gu W et al., [Clinical observation of Alzheimer's disease treated with acupuncture]. Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2014 Dec;34(12):1156-60.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25876339