Effects of Electroacupuncture on Alleviating Prostatodynia and Inflammation in Rats with Chronic Nonbacterial Prostatitis

Abstract

Purpose: Chronic prostatitis (CP) is a common urinary disease characterized by a complex sequence of symptoms including prostatodynia, which results in significant physical pain and mental burden to affected patients. Currently, CP has no standard treatment. Thus, physical therapy electroacupuncture (EA) which has been successful in treating several inflammationrelated pain conditions was used to determine its effect on rats with CP. Materials and Methods: Rats were castrated and treated with beta-estradiol for 28 days for CP modeling, and EA was initiated one week after. Following three weeks of treatment, painrelated behavioral testing, mechanical withdrawal threshold, and potential histopathological mechanisms were examined. Results: EA treatment produced a significant antinociceptive effect, effectively increasing the pain threshold of CP rats, and the biochemical results revealed significantly lowered prostatic specific antigen levels. Histopathological results also demonstrated that EA exerted protective properties on prostate morphological changes, as well as decreased inflammation cytokines and oxidative stress molecular expressions in prostate tissue. Furthermore, EA alleviated microglial and astrocyte activation in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, decreasing CXC motif ligand 1 expressions in activated spinal astrocytes. Conclusion:In conclusion, it was demonstrated that EA alleviated CP-induced pain, which was partly achieved by the downregulation of inflammation, oxidative stress, and spinal cord glial activation.

Molecular mechanism and promising treatments of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: An exploratory bibliometric analysis and literature review of preclinical studies

“…As an important part of TCM, acupuncture has been extensively studied in CP/CPPS. Some studies had observed the potential efficacy of acupuncture for CP/CPPS in animal models [78,79] . And some studies have validated the efficacy of acupuncture for CP/CPPS in clinical trials [77,80] .…”

Autonomic Nervous System Dysfunction Is Related to Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome

“…This observation indicated that astrocytes contribute to the development of pain in the later period. Therefore, astrocytes play an important part in the resistant pain of chronic abacterial prostatitis [ 67 68 ]. Various evidence shows the activation and sensitization of spinal cords in chronic prostatitis.…”

Glial Cells of the Central Nervous System: A Potential Target in Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome

“…Pain. Astrocytes have been proven to be involved in EAP-induced pain and potential targets for certain interventions in the past decade or so [99][100][101][102]. Zhang et al found increasing activated astrocytes in the L6-S1 spinal dorsal horn of EAP rats where substance P (SP) was also elevated indicating a possible association [99].…”

“…Also, SP, NK-1R, TNF-α, and iNOS were elevated in the L5-S2 spinal dorsal horn [100]. It was reported that electroacupuncture could release pain symptoms of chronic prostatitis rats while inhibiting astrocyte activation and CXCL1 expressions in astrocytes in the L5-S2 spinal dorsal horn, indicating that CXCL1 in astrocytes might be a potential target for chronic prostatitis [101]. Additionally, Liu et al detected elevated CCL2 expression of the lower dorsal horn of the spinal cord which was mainly from GFAP-positive astrocytes and NeuNpositive aferent neurons [103].…”