Acupuncture May Help to Prevent Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Randomized, Sham-Controlled, Single-Blind Study.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the efficacy of acupuncture in preventing chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: This single center, randomized, controlled, single-blind clinical trial randomly assigned patients with stage 3 CRC attending outpatient clinics in China Medical University Hospital to either verum or sham acupuncture treatment concurrently with chemotherapy. Primary outcomes were nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and touch thresholds of limb terminals. Secondary outcomes were total and subdomain scores on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G), and scores on the FACT/GOG-Ntx subscale and the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF), at baseline, weeks 12, 36, and follow-up (week 48). RESULTS: Thirty-two patients met the inclusion criteria and received verum acupuncture (N = 16) or sham acupuncture (N = 16). Under the -intent-to-treat principle, 26 participants were analyzed. Significant changes from baseline for questionnaire scores and sensory NCV were observed in both study groups. Sham acupuncture was associated with significant reductions from baseline in motor NCV and sensory touch thresholds; no such changes were observed with verum acupuncture. No serious adverse events were reported. CONCLUSION: Prophylactic acupuncture may exert neuroprotective effects on mechanical or tactile touch thresholds during chemotherapy regimens in patients with CRC, with evidence of this protectiveness persisting at 6 months' follow-up. The lack of change in motor NCV values with verum acupuncture indicates neuroprotective effects. Sensory NCV values and patient-reported outcomes did not differ significantly between the study groups.

Chinese Herbal Medicine Ameliorated the Development of Chronic Kidney Disease in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C: A Retrospective Population-Based Cohort Study.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a serious complication affecting patients with chronic hepatitis. The effectiveness of CHM for the prevention of CKD in hepatitis patients remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective cohort study to investigate the effectiveness of CHM in preventing the development of CKD in hepatitis patients. From a subdataset of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), we included 19,409 patients newly diagnosed with hepatitis B and hepatitis C between the years 2000 and 2010. After exclusion criteria and 1 : 1 propensity score matching process, we compared demographic factors, comorbidities, and correlated drugs between the CHM and non-CHM cohorts. Statistical analysis was applied to evaluate the differences in characteristic distributions and to compare the cumulative incidence of CKD between the CHM and non-CHM cohorts. This study showed that the patients suffering from hepatitis C with CHM treatment more than 90 days as an adjuvant therapy combined with western medical treatment modalities exhibited a decreased risk of developing CKD (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.21-0.76, p value <0.01). The Kaplan-Meier curve revealed a lower cumulative incidence rate of CKD (p value = 0.004) for the CHM cohort. For further reference, we herein offer the ten most frequently prescribed single herbs and herbal formulas; as such, Salviae miltiorrhizae and Jia-Wei-Xiao-Yao-San were the most commonly prescribed single herb and formula, respectively. This nationwide retrospective cohort study provides evidence that CHM is an effective adjuvant treatment to decrease the risk of developing CKD in hepatitis C patients.

A Wi-Fi Union Mechanism for Internet Advertising Reciprocal Platform in Microenterprises.

With the evolution of the Internet and smartphone devices, Internet advertising has become one of the most important methods for delivering promotional marketing messages to customers. However, the efficiency of Internet advertising for microenterprise is not very high, since Wi-Fi advertising-which is limited by a small router coverage area-is mainly used. Moreover, because of the lack of money, microenterprises have been using low-cost methods to promote their products. Thus, enhancing the effectiveness of Wi-Fi advertising, and solving the problem of cost and the range of the views are now an essential investigation in this study. In this paper, we propose a reciprocal model with Wi-Fi union mechanism for Internet advertising based on fog computing architecture to enhance the efficiency of advertisement, reduce the cost, and increase the range of the views for microenterprise by using the Internet. In particular, the system was built in advertisers', publishers', and consumers' sides. In our system, we use contribution point (CP) as an exchange value among the participants. Advertisers and publishers can get CP by helping the others in the system to promote their advertisements, increasing their CP by one unit. Similarly, advertisers and publishers can use their CP to ask for assistance from the others, decreasing their CP by one unit. The result shows that the system in a Wi-Fi union is easy to use, and advertisements can be seen by all customers who are using free Wi-Fi from the stores of the union. This method can solve the problem of cost and fixed consumer groups.