Trinh Dieu-Thuong Thi, Vo Chi-Thien, Bui Minh-Man Pham, Vuong Nguyen Lam
Traditional Medicine Administration, Ministry of Health, Hanoi, VNM.
Faculty of Traditional Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh, VNM.
Cureus. 2024 Jan 10;16(1):e52068. doi: 10.7759/cureus.52068. eCollection 2024 Jan.
Introduction The use of acupuncture has been suggested for the treatment of neck pain. Recently, a large body of evidence demonstrated that acupuncture has an effect on microcirculation in pain regions, but the exact mechanism remains unclear. This study aims to evaluate the skin surface thermographic changes in the posterior neck associated with manual acupuncture at the Houxi (SI-3) acupoint. Methods Sixty healthy volunteers of both genders, aged 18 to 30 years, were randomly determined into two groups: left acupuncture (Group A) and right acupuncture (Group B). Each group underwent two sessions with a seven-day interval. The first session involved acupuncture at the control Yuji (LU-10) acupoint, while the second session featured acupuncture at the SI-3 acupoint. Skin temperature at the posterior neck was measured by using an infrared thermal camera (FLIR C5™, FLIR® Systems, Inc., Wilsonville, OR, USA) at five time points with 5-minute intervals. Results There were statistically significant increases in posterior neck skin surface temperature (p < 0.05) during acupuncture at both the left and right SI-3 acupoints, but no significant change was observed during acupuncture at the left and right LU-10 acupoints. Furthermore, acupuncture at the SI-3 acupoint on either hand increased posterior neck skin surface temperature without a statistically significant difference (p > 0.05). Conclusion We observed that applying acupuncture at the SI-3 acupoint increased the skin surface temperature of the posterior neck area. Furthermore, the SI-3 acupoint exhibits a uniform impact on the posterior neck area's skin surface temperature, regardless of the side chosen for acupuncture.
引言 有人提出可使用针灸治疗颈部疼痛。最近，大量证据表明针灸对疼痛区域的微循环有影响，但其确切机制仍不清楚。本研究旨在评估后溪穴（SI-3）行手法针刺时后颈部皮肤表面温度的变化。方法 60名年龄在18至30岁之间的健康男女志愿者被随机分为两组：左侧针刺组（A组）和右侧针刺组（B组）。每组进行两次针刺，间隔7天。第一次针刺选取对照穴位鱼际穴（LU-10），第二次针刺选取后溪穴（SI-3）。使用红外热像仪（FLIR C5™，FLIR® Systems公司，美国俄勒冈州威尔逊维尔）在5个时间点测量后颈部皮肤温度，时间间隔为5分钟。结果 在左右两侧后溪穴针刺时，后颈部皮肤表面温度均有统计学意义的升高（p < 0.05），但在左右两侧鱼际穴针刺时未观察到显著变化。此外，针刺任一侧的后溪穴均可使后颈部皮肤表面温度升高，且无统计学意义上的差异（p > 0.05）。结论 我们观察到针刺后溪穴可使后颈部区域的皮肤表面温度升高。此外，无论选择哪一侧进行针刺，后溪穴对后颈部区域的皮肤表面温度均有一致影响。
