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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Warm Moxibustion and Scraping as a Traditional Chinese Medicine Therapy for Cervical Spondylosis Treatment
Published on: June 27, 2025
Wet Cupping Therapy Improves Local Blood Perfusion and Analgesic Effects in Patients with Nerve-Root Type Cervical
Xiang-Wen Meng1, Ying Wang1, Sheng-Ai Piao1
1College of Acupuncture and Massage, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, 300193, China.
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.
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