Acupuncture treatment for acute icteric hepatitis

Objective: To observe the clinical efficacy of acupuncture treatment for acute icteric hepatitis. Method: Forty patients with acute icteric hepatitis were randomized into a treatment group and a control group (20 in each group). Oral liver-protecting medicine was administrated for the control group. In the treatment group, acupuncture with Yinlingquan-SP9, Yanglingquan-GB34, Zhusanli-ST36, Sanyinjiao-SP6, and Taichong-LR3 was added. The clinical efficacies and serum liver enzymes, including (TB, ALT, and GGT) were evaluated. Result: The total effective rate was 94.7% in the treatment group and 85.0% in the control group respectively, which differed significantly different(P<0.05). The liver function indexes decreased significantly in both groups after treatment (P<0.01). The indicators of the treatment group were significantly lower than those of the control group after treatment (P<0.05). Conclusion: Acupuncture combined with hepatoprotective drugs could be an effective method to treat acute jaundice hepatitis and showed better effectiveness than the single use of the conventional therapy.