Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Feb 16, 2023; 15(2): 56-63
Published online Feb 16, 2023. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v15.i2.56
Study of wrist-ankle acupuncture therapy for optimizing anaesthesia scheme of painless gastroscopy and improving painless gastroscopy related complications
Li-Yan Zheng, Sui-Cai Mi, Ling-Yan Wu, Zheng-Jin Xu, Hao Lu
Li-Yan Zheng, Department of Anesthesiology, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Sui-Cai Mi, Department of Oncology, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Ling-Yan Wu, Department of Nephropathy, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Zheng-Jin Xu, Department of Nephrology, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Hao Lu, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Author contributions: Zheng LY, Wu LY, Lu H, and Mi SC performed the research; Mi SC and Lu H designed the research study; Xu ZJ and Lu H contributed to the collection and assembly of data; Lu H, Zheng LY, and Wu LY analysed the data; Zheng LY, Wu LY, and Mi SC wrote the paper.
Supported by Xiamen Medical and Health Guidance Project Section, No. 3502Z20224ZD1169; Xiamen sixth batch of TCM Reserve Talent Training Project, No. 136,2022.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (approval No: 20211129).
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest with this work.
Data sharing statement: All data during the study period are included in the public database.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement – checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement – checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sui-Cai Mi, MMed, Deputy Director, Department of Oncology, Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 1739 Xianyue Road, Huli District, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China. boyuexinling@163.com
Received: October 1, 2022
Peer-review started: October 1, 2022
First decision: November 22, 2022
Revised: November 22, 2022
Accepted: January 9, 2023
Article in press: January 9, 2023
Published online: February 16, 2023
Processing time: 135 Days and 2 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

With the intervention of anaesthesia technology, painless gastroscopy can effectively reduce the pain of patients and is gradually becoming a widely accepted examination method in clinical practice. However, each anaesthetic and opioid has adverse reactions, such as respiratory depression. Recently, the application of acupuncture anaesthesia in the field of digestive endoscopy has gradually achieved good results.

Research motivation

This study observed the intervention treatment of patients with wrist-ankle acupuncture therapy and observed the influence of the anaesthesia scheme, drug dosage and occurrence of anaesthesia-related adverse reactions during and after painless gastroscopy. To find a treatment plan that can reduce the dosage of propofol and the gastrointestinal reactions of patients after the examination.

Research objectives

The aim was to provide a more optimized painless gastroscope anaesthesia prescription scheme for clinical practice, help reduce the dose of anaesthetic drugs, shorten the time for patients to wake up and leave the hospital, reduce anaesthetic complications, facilitate the development of painless gastroscopy in clinical practice, and improve the compliance and tolerance of patients to treatment.

Research methods

In this study, two hundred patients with painless gastroscopy from January 2022 to July 2022 were selected and randomly divided into a treatment group (n = 100) and a control group (n = 100). Both groups were routinely anaesthetized with the nalbuphine and propofol regimen, and gastroscopy began after the patient lost consciousness. If the patient interrupted the surgery due to intraoperative torsion, intravenous propofol was used to relieve his or her discomfort. The control group was given supportive treatment and vital sign monitoring, and the treatment group received wrist-ankle acupuncture on this basis.

Research results

The general data before treatment, American Society of Anesthesiologist (ASA) grade and operation time between the two groups was no significant difference. The Wakeup time, and the self-ambulation time was significantly faster than that in the control group. The total dose of propofol in the treatment group was 109 ± 8.17 mg, significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05). The incidence of respiratory depression and hypotension was not significantly different, but the incidence of hiccups was significantly lower than that in the control group. After the examination, the incidence of nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, and abdominal pain was significantly lower than that in the control group. In addition, both the operators and the patients were more satisfied with this examination, with no significant difference between the groups.

Research conclusions

Wrist-ankle acupuncture treatment can optimize the anaesthesia prescription during painless gastroscopy and significantly reduce the total dose of propofol during the examination without affecting the examination operation and the satisfaction of the examiner and the patient, thus shortening the patient's recovery time and significantly reducing the probability of nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension and other complications after the completion of the procedure.

Research perspectives

This treatment is beneficial to the development of painless gastroscopy in clinical practice, and improves the compliance and tolerance of patients. Therefore, drug anaesthesia combined with wrist-ankle acupuncture treatment is a safe, feasible, simple and effective method that is worthy of clinical application and promotion.