Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia: A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: It is simple, convenient, inexpensive, proven, extensive, and safe for acupuncture in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). However, there are no comparisons between various acupuncture therapies that can directly and effectively provide specific guidance to clinicians. The development of a guideline for the optimization of acupuncture for PHN is of great importance for the development of clinical acupuncture. Therefore, we attempted to design a study protocol for a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for PHN to provide evidence to support the treatment of acupuncture for PHN. METHODS: A search of 8 databases, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Wanfang, China Biomedical Literature Database, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science, was conducted to collect randomized controlled trials about acupuncture for PHN. RevMan 5.3 and Stata 14.0 software were used for data analysis. RESULTS: This meta-analysis will provide additional and more robust evidence for acupuncture treatment of PHN. Our findings will assist clinicians in making treatment decisions. CONCLUSION: This study will provide comprehensive and reliable evidence-based evidence for the treatment of PHN with acupuncture.

Phenolic alkaloids from Menispermum dauricum inhibits BxPC-3 pancreatic cancer cells by blocking of Hedgehog signaling pathway.

BACKGROUND: The Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway plays an important role in pancreatic cancer (PC) cells. Phenolic alkaloids from Menispermum dauricum (PAMD), a traditional Chinese medicine used for the treatment of immune disorders, have been reported to have antitumor activity recently. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy and mechanism of PAMD against PC cell BxPC-3. MATERIALS AND METHODS: F assay was used to assess cell proliferation inhibition of PAMD; the apoptotic induction and cell cycle arrest was detected by flow cytometry; the BxPC-3 xenograft was established to evaluate the tumor growth inhibition of PAMD; hematoxylin-eosin staining was applied to analyze the pathological morphology of tumor tissues; immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Western blot was adopted to detect the protein levels; quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to determine the mRNA expressions. RESULTS: PAMD shows time-and dose-dependent proliferation inhibition on the BxPC-3 cell, induced G0/G1 phase arrest and cell apoptosis in vitro. PAMD also showed better inhibition of tumor growth and a preferable safety profile compared with chemotherapeutic regimen 5-fluoro-2, 4 (1 H, 3 H) pyrimidinedione in BxPC-3 xenograft in vivo. Furthermore, PAMD directly decreases the protein and mRNA levels of Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) and its downstream transcription factor Gli-1 in the BxPC-3 tumor tissues. CONCLUSION: The treatment of PAMD displayed Hh signaling pathway blockade through decreasing the protein and mRNA levels of Shh and its downstream transcription factor Gli-1, suggesting a promising strategy in treating human PC.