Electro-acupuncture effectiveness on labor pain management

Autor: Jiangang Zheng, Zhihong Meng, Lili Gao, Tao Sha
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Archives of gynecology and obstetrics. 292(2)
ISSN: 1432-0711
Popis: We were interested extremely to read the paper written by Chris Dong et al. in your journal that compared the effects on labor pain management by applying electro-acupuncture at two acupoints of EX-B2 and SP6. We were very pleased to see that electro-acupuncture at these acupoints could reduce labor pain and shorten the duration of active phase of labor in this clinical trial [1]. Unfortunately, some inaccuracies were noticed by us in this paper regarding the description of the location of acupoints. The authors state that EX-B2 is approximately located 1.7 cm lateral to the posterior median line and the SP6 is located 5 cm above medial malleolus in lower leg [1]. However, it is worth pointing out that ‘‘cun’’ is usually used to describe the location of acupoints in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In general, SP6 is located on the tibial aspect of the leg, posterior to the medial border of the tibia and 3 B-cun (proportional bone cun) superior to the prominence of the medial malleolus [2]. Besides, the location of EX-B2 is 0.5 B-cun lateral to the lower border of each spinous process from the first thoracic vertebra to the fifth lumbar vertebra on both sides [3]. As is known to all, acupuncture is a kind of traditional Chinese medicinal technique, which has a history of thousands of years. According to TCM theory, B-cun method is based on the skeletal structure of the body to be measured. The length or width of equally divided portions of a certain part of the body is taken as one cun, a unit of measurement, the same as skeletal proportional cun [4, 5]. In other words, differences may appear when one cun is measured by modern measuring methods between different individuals. Thus, this method depicted in the paper which uses the modern unit of measurement, for instance millimeter, centimeter and so on to locate acupoints, is not appropriate. As an example, the location of SP6 in original text is 5 cm above medial malleolus, but 5 cm is not always equal to 3 B-cun in different persons. So if using specifically modern measurements to locate acupoints in clinical practice, it may cause large deviations and influence the therapeutic effects. In conclusion, it is vitally important to describe the utmost accuracy of acupoints in clinical trials. Furthermore, this effort will provide a firm basis for the therapeutic effect of acupuncture and improve the credibility on the final results of acupuncture clinical trials worldwide.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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