Clinical effect and mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion on occupational hand-arm vibration disease: A retrospective study

Abstract Introduction This is a retrospective study exploring clinical effect of acupuncture and moxibustion on upper limb disorder induced by occupational hand-arm vibration disease (OHAVD), and preliminarily exploring mechanism of the effect. Methods 43 patients diagnosed with occupational HAVD were divided into experimental group (n = 21) and control group (n = 22). Before and after 4 weeks treatment, the occurrence of vibration-induced white finger(VWF) was observed, upper limb function was assessed using the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire, based on which the DASH scores were determined, and the serum concentration of TNFα was detected using ELISA. Results Pre-treatment DASH score was not significantly different between two groups, but post-treatment score was significantly lower in experimental group than in control group (21.94 ± 5.79vs.35.87 ± 3.80, p  2  = 5.081, p = 0.024).88.37% of the pretreatment serum TNFα concentration was above reference range 8.1 pg/ml, and it was not significantly different between two groups. However, post-treatment TNFα concentration in experimental group was significantly lower than that in control group (10.51 ± 3.68 pg/ml vs.14.72 ± 8.66 pg/ml, p = 0.045). Further, the difference in DASH score and TNFα concentration before and after treatment was statistically significant between groups (p  Conclusions Combination of acupuncture and moxibustion may be an effective treatment for occupational HAVD, the mechanism is possibly related to reduction of the serum TNFα levels.