Effects of combining electroacupuncture with general anesthesia induced by sevoflurane in patients undergoing supratentorial craniotomy and improvements in their clinical recovery profile & blood enkephalin.

In this study, we showed the effectiveness of EA on the speed of post-operative recovery of patients undergoing supratentorial craniotomy and the potential clinical mechanism of EA. Dual channel electrical stimulator made by HANS Beijing connected the following acupoints respectively: LI4 (Hegu), SJ5 (Waiguan), ST36 (Zusanli), BL63 (Jinmen), LR3 (Taichong), and GB40 (Qiuxu). Disperse-dense and symmetric biphasic pulse waves were selected, frequency of waves (pulse rates) were 2Hz/100Hz, altered/3sec; pulse duration was 0.6ms/0.2ms, 2Hz: 0.6ms, 100Hz: 0.2ms; symmetric biphasic pulse wave. We found that the EA-group required 9.62% less sevoflurane than the sham EA-group (P<0.05). During recovery from anesthesia, the autonomous respiration recovery time, tracheo-tube removal time, eye-opening time, voluntary motor recovery time, orientation force recovery time, and the operating-room departure time of the EA-group were all significantly shortened 35.86%, 27.07%, 38.38%, 30.11%, 34.95%, 28.80% than the corresponding sham EA-group, respectively (P<0.05). The serum enkephalin values were elevated in the EA group versus the sham EA-group. PMID: 23156204 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Source: Acupuncture and Electro-Therapeutics Research - Category: Complementary Medicine Tags: Acupunct Electrother Res Source Type: research