Wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs on refractory cancer pain: a randomized controlled trial / 中国针灸

OBJECTIVE@#To compare the clinical effect of wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs and opioid drugs alone in treating refractory cancer pain.@*METHODS@#Sixty patients were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each one. The opioid drugs in accordance with the three-step analgesic principle and other auxiliary drugs were treated in the control group. On the basis of the treatment in the control group, wrist-ankle needle was added in the observation group, and acupoints were selected according to the pain site and the primary focus, the treatment was given once a day for 10 days. The visual analogue scale (VAS) score, the times of pain outbreaks and the incidence of adverse reactions were compared at the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th days of treatment and the 3rd and 7th days after treatment. The therapeutic effect in the two groups were compared after treatment.@*RESULTS@#Compared with the control group, the VAS scores in the observation group were significantly reduced from the 2nd day of wrist-ankle needle treatment, and continued to the 3rd day after the end of the treatment (0.05); compared with the control group, the times of pain outbreaks in the observation group decreased from the 2nd day to the 10th day of treatment (all <0.05); the incidence of nausea, vomiting and constipation in the observation group was significantly reduced compared with the control group (<0.05); the total effective rate in the observation group was 86.7% (26/30), which was higher than 76.7% (23/30) in the control group (<0.05).@*CONCLUSION@#Wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs can increase the efficacy of the refractory cancer pain and reduce the adverse reactions of opioid drugs.

Preparation and characterization of 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin-loaded hypomicron of amphiphilic block copolymer / 药学学报

Methoxypolyethylene glycol-poly lactic acid (PELA) was synthesized by ring-opening copolymerization of lactide in the presence of mPEG and its structure was characterized by 1H NMR. The novel hypomicrons were prepared by solution-casting method using PELA block copolymer as a matrix and 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38) as an antitumor agent. The morphology, size and size distribution, drug loading, entrapment efficiency, and release characteristics in vitro of the SN-38 loaded hypomicrons were studied. The results showed that the obtained hypomicrons showed spherical shape with the core-shell structure, the sizes are in the range of 157-238 nm, and the drug loading content varied from 1.35%-3.58% depending on the copolymer composition and the SN-38 fed amount. The in vitro release behavior in phosphate-buffered saline, pH 7.4, exhibited a sustaining release manner and was affected by the copolymer composition. The drug-loaded amount and entrapment efficiency decreased with increasing the molecular weight of the copolymer. With the increasing of the SN-38 fed amount, the drug-loaded amount and the size of hypomicrons increased, the entrapment efficiency decreased. The SN-38 hypomicrons increased the solubility of SN-38 in water and were valuable for the development of the novel dosage form of SN-38.