Acupuncture has Major Post Surgical Benefits

Alex comments:  Anasthesia can be very difficult to recover from in addition to the surgery itself.   It is gratifying that there were good results in upregulating the immune system in the post-anasthesia period. 

Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2010 Jul;30(7):585-8.

Effects of acupuncture-drug compound anesthesia on perioperative inflammatory factors in patients undergoing cardiac surgery

[Article in Chinese]

Shan JG, Xue S, Xu GX, Wang WJ, Lian F, Liu S, Hu ZL, Huang RT.

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Renji Hospital, Medical College of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200127, China.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of acupuncture-drug compound anesthesia on immune function in patients with extracorporeal circulation undergoing cardiac surgery.
METHODS: Thirty cases undergoing cardiac surgery which included atrial septal defect neoplasty, ventricular septal defect neoplasty, mitral valve replacement and pulmonary valve coarctotomy were randomly divided into group A and group B, 15 cases in each group. Group A was given general anesthesia plus acupuncture at Neiguan (PC 6), Lieque (LU 7) and Yunmen (LU 2), and group B was given simple general anesthesia. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) levels before and after surgery were compared.
RESULTS: The level of TNF-alpha was increased and the levels of IL-2 and IL-10 in the serum were decreased in both groups after extracorporeal circulation for 2 h and 24 h, and the ranges of all changes were more less in group A (all P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION: Compared with simple general anesthesia, acupuncture-drug compound anesthesia can improve immune suppression partially in the perioperative periods under the same conditions of controlling anesthesia degree.

PMID: 20862944 [PubMed - in process]