Clinical study on acupoints application treatment of Dog Days treating nonacutebronchial asthma - randomized double-blind placebo controlled trial

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the efficacy of Acupoints Application Treatment of Dog Days in reducing the frequency and severity of asthmatic attacks. METHODS: This was a prospective, randomized,double blinded and placebo controlled trial,326 asthma patients were randomly divided into Treatment Group (TC) and Control Group (CG) for treatment and evaluation. RESULTS: 247 patients completed all the tests and met statistical standards. There were no changes about all outcomes compared TG with CG in four-phase tests (p>0.05). After treatment, the total efficiency of the control group (79.34%) was more effective than the treatment group (73.81%), but no significant difference between the two groups (P> 0.05). And compared with pre-treatment, two groups could be very significantly reduced duration of attack (P<0.001, P <0.01) and frequency using bronchodilator (P <0.01). In TG, compared with pre-treatment,post-treatment,3rd month after treatment and 6th month after treatment, all the data had no significant statistical significance (P> 0.05), but in sub-groupIII and sub-groupIV, there were varying degrees of exaltation in post-treatment and 6th month after treatment. However, in CG, only sub-groupIV was illustrated increasing. CONCLUSION: Acupoints application treatment of dog days could improve the symptoms for nonacutebronchial asthma suffers, and can significantly reduce the duration of attack and frequency using bronchodilator. Meanwhile, there was significant improvement about lung function for patients with more episodes.