Efficacy and Safety of Fire Needle Therapy Combined With Cortex Phellodendri Compound Fluid Wet Compress for Acute Herpes Zoster: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Summary

Herpes zoster (HZ) results from a reactivation of varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which causes primary infection leading to chickenpox and remains latent in the ganglia. Fire needle therapy is a non-pharmacological treatment that combines heat therapy with traditional acupuncture. This technique involves heating sterilized needles and swiftly inserting them into specific points or areas of the skin. Chinese herbal wet compress therapy is directly delivering medications to the lesion site, facilitating rapid transdermal absorption. This method ensures stable local drug concentrations and effectively alleviates pain, swelling, and other clinical symptoms. In this study, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of fire needle therapy combined with CPCF wet compress for the treatment of acute HZ. 32 acute HZ patients were randomized into control (standard antiviral and analgesic therapy) and treated groups (standard therapy plus fire needle \[5 sessions, every other day\] and CPCF wet compress \[3 times/day, 10 days\]). After 10 days of treatment, fire needle combined with CPCF wet compress significantly enhances symptom relief, pain reduction, and quality of life in acute HZ, with favorable safety.

Conditions

• Acute Herpes Zoster

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Fire needle

At the beginning of the fire needle therapy, the patient was instructed to exposure the lesion in a comfortable position. And the Ashi point (lesion area) was disinfected with iodophor. The 95% alcohol lamp was lit and held by the left hand. Then the needle was held by the right hand in the outer flame of the alcohol lamp to heat the needle body, making the tip of the needle whiten. Subsequently, the needle was quickly and accurately puncted into the base of the herpes at a depth of about 2-5 mm, straight in and out. According to the number of herpes, the early-onset herpes was puncted first, and about 5 to 10 blisters were selected for each puncture. The acupuncture was performed 1-5 times according to the size of the herpes. The treatment was performed once every other day for total 5 sessions.

DRUG

Cortex Phellodendri compound fluid wet compress

For the Chinese herbal wet compress treatment, CPCF (Shandong Hanfang Pharmaceutical Co., LTD.) was decocted using forsythia, honeysuckle, phellodendron, dandelion, and centipede. Appropriate amount of liquid was diluted with 5 times the volume of water. Then according to the area of skin lesions, several pieces of medical fat-free cotton gauze with thickness of 8 layers were put into the liquid completely wet. After wringing out to a semi-dry state, the gauze was applied to the lesion for 15 minutes/time, 3 times a day, for 10 days.

DRUG

basic treatment

The basic treatment consisted of penciclovir 0.5g/time per day intravenously, mecobalamin 0.5mg/time three times a day orally and pregabalin 75mg/time twice a day orally for 10 days.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Weihui Zeng · Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-01-01

Primary Completion

2024-08-31

Completion

2024-08-31

Countries

• China

Study Locations