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KMID : 1129720090260020027
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Korean Journal of Acupuncture
2009 Volume.26 No. 2 p.27 ~ p.38
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The effect of acupuncture for changing the levels of erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein and cytokines in the sera of rheumatoid arthritis patients
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Kim Seung-Tae
Kim Yun-Ju
Lee Hyang-Sook
Choi Sun-Mi
Park Hi-Joon
Lee Hye-Jung
Yin Chang-Shik
Lee Ji-Young
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Abstract
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Objectives: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease, principally characterized by synovial inflammation of the joints. We previously reported the effect of acupuncture for RA, but the mechanism is still unclear. Various factors such as oxidative stress and angiogenesis were involved in the pathogenesis of RA, and recently, it has also been reported that cytokines also play a major role in RA. Thus, we investigated whether acupuncture could induce any changes in the levels of cytokines including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), angiogenin and epidermal growth factor (EGF) as well as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), c-reactive protein (CRP), and rheumatoid factor (RF) in the sera of RA patients.
Methods: The forty three patients who met the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for RA recruited. The acupuncture group (n=21) underwent 14 sessions of partially individualized acupuncture treatment for 6 weeks, and the control group had no treatment (n=13) over the same periods. We evaluated ESR, CRP and RF. In addition, to find out the mechanism of acupuncture, we assessed the changes of the cytokine activities using protein cytokine array in the sera of the patients.
Results: Acupuncture significantly decreased the levels of ESR and CRP, but RF were not changed after 6-week acupuncture treatments. Moreover, acupuncture reduced the levels of VEGF, angiogenin and EGF in the sera of the patients. Interestingly, they were related with angiogenesis, which is an important process in the pathogenesis of RA. The levels of oncostatin, interleukin(IL)-1α, IL-8, leptin, monocyte chemotactic protein-1, macrophage-derived chemokine, macrophage inflammatory proteins-1, platelet-derived growth factor BB and RANTES were not changed significantly.
Conclusions: The effect of acupuncture for reliving RA symptoms can be partially explained by inhibition of angiogenesis factors in the sera of the RA patients.
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KEYWORD
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Rheumatoid arthritis, Acupuncture, angiogenin, vascular endothelial growth factor, epidermal growth factor
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