Mechanism of Acupuncture and Moxibustion on Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome: A Narrative Review of Animal Studies

Abstract

Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a genitourinary disease commonly seen in males, with symptoms involving pelvic pain, urinary system disease, and sexual dysfunction, which seriously affects physical and mental health, and it also influences the quality of life of patients. At present, the disease’s aetiology and pathogenesis are unclear, and there is also no effective treatment for it. Acupuncture and moxibustion have been a way to CP/CPPS, showing good curative effect with advantages of safety and affordability. However, the relevant research in this field is less discussed. By adopting databases, such as CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, PubMed, and Medline, this review article used keywords including chronic prostatitis, chronic pelvic pain syndrome, and electric acupuncture, manual acupuncture, moxibustion, and animal experiments, rats, mice, and mechanism research and reviewing research papers published from 1998 to 2021. Then, it further summarized and evaluated the mechanism research and gave a brief comment about modeling methods, acupoints selection, and stimulus parameters that have been used in the selected research papers. Equally important, this review article proposes a reference for the in-depth study of the mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion on CP/CPPS and provides a theoretical basis to better treat the disease in the clinic.

Comparative analysis of efficacy of different combination therapies of α-receptor blockers and traditional Chinese medicine external therapy in the treatment of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: Bayesian network meta-analysis

“…Moxibustion features high safety and low cost and so on including moxibustion on governor vessel acupoints, cotton moxibustion, medicinal thread moxibustion and pyretic moxibustion and the such [ 60 ]. Studies concerning moxibustion in the treatment of chronic CP/CPPS are relative less nowadays which indicated that the primary mechanism of moxibustion in the treatment of CP/CPPS is to improve whole blood reduced viscosity, white blood cell rigidity index, aggregation index and the level of fibrinogen to ameliorate hemorheology state by exerting thermal stimulation on blood vessel and tissues [ 28 , 61 ]. When moxibustion is combined with antipyretics-analgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs, anti-inflammatory and analgesic effect can be enhanced because the combination therapy can downgrade inflammatory factors, which is suggested by many studies [ 62 , 63 ].…”

The Therapeutic Potential of Acupuncture in Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome

“…Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is a membrane-bound protein that induces stimuli including proinflammatory cytokines and growth factors, implying that COX-2 plays a role in both inflammation and cell growth control while being involved in neurotransmission, particularly for pain and fever. 65 In Wu et al 66 studies, they found that EA can effectively relieve pain in rats with CPPS, which may be related to the down-regulation of COX-2 and PGE2 and the up-regulation of β-EP. In addition, the above-mentioned role of the spinal cord pathway in analgesia was further confirmed.…”

Effect of electroacupuncture on cyclic adenosine monophosphate-protein kinase A-vanillic acid receptor subtype 1 of the transient receptor potential/PLK-protein kinase C-vanillic acid receptor subtype 1 of the transient receptor potential pathway based on RNA-seq analysis in prostate tissue in rats with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome

“…While the efficacy of EA on CP/CPPS has been proven in clinical practice, little is studied and elucidated, however, about the analgesic mechanism. Most animal experiments related to the mechanism of EA on CP/CPPS are without in-depth and systematic exploration of possible signal pathways and targets ( Wu et al, 2021 ).…”