Thermal sensitization of acupoints in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A cross-sectional case-control study

作者：Jian‐Feng Tu, Xue-Zhou Wang, Shiyan Yan, Yiran Wang, Jing‐Wen Yang, Guang‐Xia Shi, Wenzheng Zhang, Lina Jin, Lisha Yang, Donghua Liu, Li‐Qiong Wang, Baohong Mi · 发表于：Journal of Chinese Integrative Medicine · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.joim.2025.03.004 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Infrared Thermography in Medicine、Acupuncture Treatment Research Studies、Traditional Chinese Medicine Studies

OBJECTIVE: Varied acupoint selections represent a potential cause of the uncertainty surrounding the efficacy of acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis (OA). Skin temperature, a guiding factor for acupoint selection, may help to address this issue. This study explored thermal sensitization of acupoints used for the treatment of knee OA. METHODS: This cross-sectional case-control study enrolled cases aged 45-75 years with symptomatic knee OA and age- and gender-matched non-knee OA controls in a 1:1 ratio. All participants underwent infrared thermographic imaging. The primary outcome was the relative skin temperature of acupoint (STA), and the secondary outcome was the absolute STA of 11 acupoints. The Z test was used to compare the relative and absolute STAs between the groups. Principal component analysis was used to extract the common factors (CFs, acupoint cluster) in the STAs. A general linear model was used to identify factors affecting the STA in the knee OA cases. For the group comparisons of relative STA, P < 0.0045 (adjusted for 11 acupoints through Bonferroni correction) was considered to indicate statistical significance. For other analyses, P < 0.05 was used as the threshold for statistical significance. RESULTS: ). The relative STAs of ST34 (P = 0.0001), EX-LE2 (P < 0.0001), EX-LE5 (P = 0.0006), SP10 (P < 0.0001), BL40 (P = 0.0012) and GB39 (P = 0.0037) were higher in the knee OA group. No difference was found in the STAs of ST35, ST36, SP9, GB33 and GB34. Four CFs w...