Moxibustion inhibits interleukin-12 and tumor necrosis factor alpha and modulates intestinal flora in rat with ulcerative colitis

Figure 2 Herb-partition moxibustion inhibits immunopathology and decreases the histopathological scores in colonic tissues of rats with ulcerative colitis. A: Normal; B: Ulcerative colitis (UC); C: Herb-partition moxibustion (HPM); D: Sulfasalazine (SA); E: The histopathological scores for the colonic tissue in the UC model control (MC) group were significantly higher than the normal control (NC) group (P = 0.000). After treatment, the scores were lower in both the HPM group (P = 0.007) and SA group (P = 0.015). The colonic mucosa was damaged in the UC model group with cell infiltration, congestion, edema, and ulceration. After HPM treatment, there are only slight submucosal edema and inflammatory cell infiltration, and the colonic mucosa epithelium and the colonic gland were more regularly arranged than in the model group, new epithelial cells were observed to be covering the ulcers. Positive control SA treatment showed similar recovery of the UC model as the HPM group.