Clinical efficacy of combined skin acupuncture and external washing therapy of Zhuang nationality medicine in the treatment of chronic eczema

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of combined skin acupuncture and external washing therapy of Zhuang nationality medicine in the treatment of chronic eczema. Methods: One hundred and twenty patients with chronic eczema were randomly divided into an experimental group (60 cases) and a control group (60 cases). The experimental group was treated with skin acupuncture combined with external washing therapy, and the control group was treated with externally applied mometasone furoate cream. The patients symptoms and total severity were scored and analyzed before and after the 4week treatment. The symptoms scored included:erythema, papule/hard swelling, epidermal exfoliation, mossy lesion, exudation/scab, and pruritus. Clinical efficacy and adverse reactions were compared before and after the 4week treatment. Results: Scores for the different kinds of skin derogation, pruritus symptoms, the eczema area, and severity index (EASI) were all reduced after the treatments. Pruritus symptoms and EASI scores in the experimental group were lower than those of the control group (P lt;0.05). The total effective rate in the experimental group was 81.03%, which was much higher than the 61.11% in the control group (Z=2.391, P=0.017). Conclusion: The clinical efficacy of combined skin acupuncture and external washing therapy of Zhuang nationality medicine in the treatment of chronic eczema was better than that of mometasone furoate cream.