Repeated Herbal Acupoint Sticking Relieved the Recurrence of Allergic Asthma by Regulating the Th1/Th2 Cell Balance in the Peripheral Blood

Allergic asthma is an inflammatory disease involving the Th1/Th2 cell imbalance in the peripheral blood. Repeated herbal acupoint sticking (RHAS) has been used for hundreds of years in China to relieve the recurrence of allergic asthma, and it is still practiced today. Thus, we explored the effect on allergic asthma relapse and the underlying immunoregulatory mechanism in this study. Here, we enrolled 50 allergic asthma participants, and 38 of them completed the treatment and follow-up (the allergic asthma group). In addition, 13 healthy participants (the control group) were enrolled. The recurrence number of allergic asthma participants and asthma control test (ACT) were used to evaluate the effect of treatment on relieving allergic asthma recurrence. Flow cytometry was performed to analyze the levels of Th1 and Th2 cells in the peripheral blood. The serum levels of IgE, IFN-γ, and IL-4 were detected by ELISA. (1) In the allergic asthma group, compared to before the first treatment, the recurrence number of allergic asthma participants decreased and the ACT score increased at end of the last treatment, 18 and 30 weeks of the trial (P