Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Acupuncture Treatment Of Exudative Central Chorioretinopathy - A Preliminary Report Of 600 Cases

Department of Ophthalmology, The first Hospital, Zhejiang Medical College*

*Compiled by Ye Linmei

Exudative central chorioretinopathy is one of the common ocular diseases. The early impairment of the central vision and protracted clinical course may seriously interfere with the life of those suffered. Various remedies have been advocated by authors of different countries with certain beneficial results, though far from being satisfactory. On account of the lengthy therapeutic course and great expense needed, their practical use has not met with general approval.


Since the mid of 1970 we began to treat this disease with acupuncture of "Xiangyang" point and the clinical results attained were encouraging with an overall cure or improved rate up to 97.66%. From the accumulated clinical experiences for more than 7 years, it has been shown that acupuncture of "Xiangyang" point in the treatment of exudative central chorioretinopathy is the method of choice. It is efficacious, with shorter therapeutic course, simple, safe and almost painless with a low cost and less equipment needed.


Analysis of 600 cases with exudative central chorioretinopathy undergoing acupuncture therapy showed an overall results of cured or improved in 586 cases (97.66%) and unsatisfactory in 14 cases (2.34%).

The role of acupuncture might be postulated as that the favorable effects of needling "Xiangyang" point perhaps traverse through the distribution of cervical plexuses and sympathetic chains. More recently the fluorescin angiography of the fundus has demonstrated definite changes in the permeability of choriocapillaries. One would anticipated that the mild stimulation by needling may regulate the malfunctioned cervical sympathetic plexus, reduce the permeability of choriocapillaries and promote the resolution of edema and exudation.


As regards the nature of channel, whether it does designate nervous system still remains unsolved. For the time being we would assume that channel may intimately correlate with nervous system.

Literatures referring to this disease both in Western and traditional Chinese medicine were reviewed with discussion.

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