Wet Cupping Therapy Improves Local Blood Perfusion and Analgesic Effects in Patients with Nerve-Root Type Cervical Spondylosis.

OBJECTIVE: To observe wet cupping therapy (WCT) on local blood perfusion and analgesic effects in patients with nerve-root type cervical spondylosis (NT-CS). METHODS: Fifty-seven NT-CS patients were randomly divided into WCT group and Jiaji acupoint-acupuncture (JA) group according a random number table. WCT group (30 cases) was treated with WCT for 10 min, and JA group (27 cases) was treated with acupuncture for 10 min. The treatment efficacies were evaluated with a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Blood perfusion at Dazhui (GV 14) and Jianjing (GB 21) acupoints (affected side) was observed with a laser speckle flowmetry, and its variations before and after treatment in both groups were compared as well. RESULTS: In both groups, the VAS scores significantly decreased after the intervention (P<0.01), while the blood perfusion at the two acupoints significantly increased after intervention (P<0.05); however, the increasement magnitude caused by WCT was obvious compared with JA (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: WCT could improve analgesic effects in patients with NT-CS, which might be related to increasing local blood perfusion of acupunct points.

Stimuli-Responsive "Cluster Bomb" for Programmed Tumor Therapy.

In this paper, mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) and capped with tumor-homing/-penetrating peptide tLyP-1-modified tungsten disulfide quantum dots (WS2-HP) was designed and applied as a stimuli-responsive "Cluster Bomb" for high-performance tumor suppression. The peptide tLyP-1 on the surface can both facilitate the homing of DOX@MSN-WS2-HP to 4T1 tumor and greatly enhance the penetration of WS2-HP in tumor. The benzoic-imine bonds as the linkers between "bomblets" and "dispenser" are stable under normal physical conditions and quite labile at pH 6.8. After arriving at the mild acidic tumor microenvironment, the nanoplatform can rapidly break into two parts: (1) electropositive DOX@MSN-NH2 for efficient chemotherapy on surface tumor cells and (2) small-sized WS2-HP with improved tumor penetrating ability for near-infrared (NIR)-light-triggered photothermal therapy (PTT) among deep-seated tumor cells. Having killed the tumor cells in different depths, DOX@MSN-WS2-HP exhibited significant antitumor effect, which will find great potential in clinical trials.

Multifunctional Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles with Thermal-Responsive Gatekeeper for NIR Light-Triggered Chemo/Photothermal-Therapy.

In this work, a matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-triggered tumor targeted mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) is designed to realize near-infrared (NIR) photothermal-responsive drug release and combined chemo/photothermal tumor therapy. Indocyanine green (ICG) and doxorubicin (DOX) are both loaded in the MSN modified with thermal-cleavable gatekeeper (Azo-CD), which can be decapped by ICG-generated hyperthermia under NIR illumination. A peptidic sequence containing a short PEG chain, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) substrate (PLGVR) and tumor cell targeting motif (RGD) are further decorated on the MSN via a host-guest interaction. The PEG chain can protect the MSN during the circulation and be cleaved off in the tumor tissues with overexpressed MMP, and then the RGD motif is switched on to target tumor cells. After the tumor-triggered targeting process, the NIR irradiation guided by ICG fluorescence can trigger cytosol drug release and realize combined chemo/photothermal therapy.

Programmed Nanococktail for Intracellular Cascade Reaction Regulating Self-Synergistic Tumor Targeting Therapy.

In this work, a ZnO based nanococktail with programmed functions is designed and synthesized for self-synergistic tumor targeting therapy. The nanococktail can actively target tumors via specific interaction of hyaluronic acid (HA) with CD44 receptors and respond to HAase-rich tumor microenvironment to induce intracellular cascade reaction for controlled therapy. The exposed cell-penetrating peptide (R8) potentiates the cellular uptake of therapeutic nanoparticles into targeted tumor cells. Then ZnO cocktail will readily degrade in acidic endo/lysosomes and induce the production of desired reactive oxygen species (ROS) in situ. The destructive ROS not only leads to serious cell damage but also triggers the on-demand drug release for precise chemotherapy, thus achieving enhanced antitumor efficiency synergistically. After tail vein injection of ZnO cocktail, a favorable tumor apoptosis rate (71.2 ± 8.2%) is detected, which is significantly superior to that of free drug, doxorubicin (12.9 ± 5.2%). Both in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate that the tailor-made ZnO cocktail with favorable biocompatibility, promising tumor specificity, and self-synergistically therapeutic capacity opens new avenues for cancer therapy.

[Discussion on necessity of standardization for nomenclature and location of extraordinary acupoints].

With retrieval of articles on extraordinary acupoint that were published in domesticin recent five years, one hundred and eight articles of clinical application are screened out and one hundred and twenty-three extraordinary acupoints that are extensively recognized are collected. Of those acupoints, 23 acupoints are included in the latest national standard. Of the rest 100 extraordinary acupoints, 48 acupoints are located on the running courses of fourteen meridians, 4 acupoints are shared with the meridian points and the other 52 acupoints have not been clarified to be located on the running courses of meridians based on the literature data. It is found in the collection of these acupoints that there are many extraordinary acupoints that are extensively used in clinical practice. But the nomenclatures and locations of acupoints have not been unified. Hence, a further standardization on these aspects is anticipated.