The efficacy of moxibustion on the pressure pain threshold and substance P / leukotriene B4 contents in serum to patients with rheumatoid arthritis

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Substance P in the context of rheumatoid arthritis in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To observe the effects of moxibustion on pressure-pain thresholds (PPTs) in affected joints and non-joint areas, as well as the contents of substance P (SP) and leukotriene B4 (LTB4) in serum of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to explore the analgesic mechanism of moxibustion in RA patients.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 72 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

A total of 72 patients with RA were randomly and equally classified into the control and treatment groups.

The control group was treated with routine drug therapy, while the treatment group received routine drug therapy and moxibustion.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Substance P and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

The methods mention a period of 8 weeks.

Both groups were treated for 8 weeks.

The symptoms, measured by PPTs, Visual analogue scale (VAS), pain joint count (PJC), swollen joint count (SJC) and disease activity score of 28 joints (DAS28), and laboratory indicators, measured by the level of SP, LTB4, tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β), were compared in the two groups before and after intervention.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Moxibustion, Arthritis, Rheumatoid, Leukotriene B4, Substance P, Pain Threshold, Interleukin-1beta and Pain Measurement.

The authors tagged it with the keywords ChiCTR-IOR-17012282, Interleukin-1β, Pressure pain threshold, Rheumatoid arthritis, Trial registration number and Tumor necrosis factor-α.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Substance P in 72 patients in people with rheumatoid arthritis over 8 weeks.

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2025 (Complementary therapies in medicine), a journal based in Scotland.

More context: the Substance P compound page, Rheumatoid arthritis research.