| Objective: To observe the clinical efficacy and safety of fire-needle pricking combined with Coptis and Arnebia ointment in the treatment of acute herpes zoster. Methods: A randomized controlled study design was adopted. A total of 83 patients were initially enrolled in this study. After case loss and exclusion, 77 patients finally completed the trial and were included for statistical analysis, including 38 cases in the fire-needle group and 39 cases in the western medicine group. Patients in the western medicine group were given oral valacyclovir, mecobalamin and gabapentin. On this basis, the fire-needle group was additionally treated with fire-needle Zanci puncture, cupping therapy and external application of Coptis Chinensis and Arnebia Root ointment on the skin lesions, with a treatment course of 7–10 days. The symptom scores, psychological scale scores, clinical efficacy grade, incidence of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) and safety indicators were compared between the two groups. Results: After treatment, the symptom and sign score of fire-needle group was (5.31±1.89) points, which was lower than (6.60±1.55) points of western medicine group (P＜0.001). The improvement of HAMA, HAMD and SCL-90 scores in fire-needle group was better than that in western medicine group (P＜0.001). The total clinical effective rate of fire-needle group was 97.37%, which was higher than 84.62% of western medicine group (P=0.042). After 1-month follow-up, the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia was 7.89% in fire-needle group, lower than 23.08% in western medicine group (P=0.032). Adverse reactions of the two groups were mild and could be relieved spontaneously, with good safety. Conclusion: Combined application of fire-needle pricking and Coptis and Arnebia ointment on the basis of conventional western medicine can obviously relieve clinical symptoms and negative emotions of patients with acute herpes zoster, improve curative effect and reduce the risk of postherpetic neuralgia, which is safe and worthy of clinical promotion. |