Background: Knee osteoarthritis, a common degenerative joint disease, has been widely treated by electroacupuncture in recent years. However, there are too many parameters of the treatment currently, resulting in various applications in clinical practice. This study aims to summarize the optimal stimulation parameters of electroacupuncture for knee osteoarthritis in clinical studies by applying data mining techniques. Methods: Four databases including Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science were searched for clinical studies on electroacupuncture treating knee osteoarthritis from 2012 to 2021. A database was established by Microsoft Excel 2020 and analyzed by R Version 4.1.1. Results: Forty-six articles were included according to the established criteria. The most used electroacupuncture stimulation parameters were 0.30 mm × 40 mm needle, continuous wave, low frequency of current (mainly 2 Hz), stimulation duration for 30 min per treatment, and frequency of treatment for once a day. Eighteen acupoints were mentioned and the most used ones include Dubi (ST35), Liangqiu (ST34), Neixiyan (EX-LE4), Xuehai (SP10), Yanglingquan (GB34), and Yinlingquan (SP9), and those most generally used acupoints are closely arranged on the Stomach Channel of Foot Yangming. Cluster analysis showed two groups, one for obligatory acupoints and one for adjunctive ones. The association analysis showed the most supported acupoint pair was Liangqiu (ST34) and Xuehai (SP10). Conclusions: Continuous wave, low frequency of current (2 Hz), 30-min stimulation, and local acupoint selection are frequently used for electroacupuncture treating knee osteoarthritis. Due to the limitations of this study, further research and more standardized, multi-centered, and large-sample clinical trials should be conducted to provide more convincing evidence.

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI), the most prevalent type of urinary incontinence disorder, has aroused increasing attention among societies since it has caused much inconvenience in daily life. In addition to conventional conservative treatments like medication and pelvic floor muscle training, acupuncture is now frequently advised. However, a bibliometric analysis of the trend of SUI therapies is still lacking. This article was carried out using CiteSpace (6.3.1) software to research the use of acupuncture therapy on SUI worldwide over the past 30 years (since the database's inception). All related articles included were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. CiteSpace (6.3.1) software was used to analyze the number of publications, countries and institutions, authors and cited authors, and burst keywords to assess the hotspots and trends over the previous three decades. And Microsoft Office Excel 2019 was also used for sorting data and generating tables. The articles were retrieved on August 31, 2022. A total of 108 records with publication dates ranging from 1992 to 2022 were discovered. The annual number of publications generally increased. In the aspect of publication regions, the USA ranked first in centrality, but China had the largest number of publications. The China Academic of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine were the top 3 institutions, according to the institution map. Liu Z (Liu ZS) was the most productive author, and Chen Y ranked first in the centrality. The article published by Liu Z (Liu ZS) in 2017 was the most cited reference. “Bladder neck suspension”, “electrical stimulation” and “acupuncture” were popular therapies mentioned among the top ten hot topics. The keywords “therapy”, “postprostatectomy incontinence”, “muscle”, “cell therapy”, and “symptom” ranked in the top five on citation burst. The four frontier topics were “efficacy”, “symptom”, “cell therapy”, and “medical technology”. This study illustrated that the application of acupuncture on SUI had an increasing acceptance worldwide. Recent research has concentrated mainly on acupuncture and electroacupuncture, however, there is still not enough literature on these topics. The valuable information was provided for acupuncture researchers to identify prospects including potential collaborators, cooperation institutions, hot themes, and research frontiers.

Study Design.: A retrospective study. Objective.: To identify the radiographic differences between Chinese and Japanese patients with cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to compare the characteristics of OPLL between the two nationalities. Summary of Background Data.: OPLL has a high prevalence in East Asia. However, the differences between Chinese and Japanese OPLL patients are poorly known. Methods.: This was a retrospective study of Chinese (n = 300) and Japanese (n = 102) consecutive patients who received a diagnosis of cervical OPLL between January 2010 and December 2014. All patients underwent CT and MRI. The type and distribution of OPLL were determined. Spinal compression was assessed by MRI. OPLL type, distribution, comorbidity, and compression of the spinal cord were examined. The ossification index (OP-index) was used to evaluate the OPLL. Factors contributing to the OP-index were examined by multivariate analysis. Results.: The Chinese patients were younger than the Japanese patients (P < 0.0001), and there were more women among the Chinese patients (P = 0.0002). The OP-index was higher among the Japanese patients (median, 5 vs. 4, P = 0.003). Among men, OPLL lesions were more frequent in the under 55-year-old Japanese at C7 (P = 0.04), in the 55 to 64-year-old Japanese at C4, C5, and C6 (all P < 0.05), and in the over 64-year-old Japanese at C3/4 (P = 0.01), compared with their Chinese counterparts. Among women, OPLL lesions were more frequent in the 55 to 64-year-old Japanese at C6 (P = 0.04). The multivariate analysis showed that only age was independently associated with the OP-index (odds ratio [OR] = 1.023, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.002–1.045, P = 0.034). Conclusion.: Japanese patients had a higher frequency of OPLL lesions at C5, C6, and C7. Age was independently associated with OPLL. Level of Evidence: 3

To investigate and compare the chemical features and antioxidant activities of Auricularia auricula polysaccharides (AAPs), three different AAPs (AAP-M, AAP-D, and AAP-C) were prepared by mannanase, β-dextranase, and cellulase. Their chemical features were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography and infrared spectroscopy. The antioxidant properties were performed both in vitro and in vivo. Results showed that the surface morphology of the A. auricula cell wall treated with three enzymes was slightly different under scanning electron microscopy. The extraction yields of AAP-M, AAP-D, and AAP-C were 18.33% ± 1.93%, 26.42% ± 0.87%, and 17.17% ± 0.08% under optimal conditions, respectively. The monosaccharide composition, molecular weight (AAP-M, AAP-D, and AAP-C were 1.03E+03 kDa, 1.76E+03 kDa, and 1.15E+03 kDa, respectively), and antioxidant activities of the three AAPs were different. AAP-C composed of mannose, glucuronic acid, glucose, and galactose, exhibiting the remarkable ability of scavenging ABTS⁺, DPPH, and H₂O₂ (IC₅₀ was 0.065, 0.081, and 0.293 mg/ml, respectively). Moreover, AAP-C could significantly prolonged the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans under oxidative stress (p < .05). The results showed that cellulase could be served as an efficient enzyme to prepare AAPs with higher antioxidant capacity. Practical applications According to the statistics of China Edible Fungi Association in 2019, the output of Auricularia auricula was accounting for 17.54% of the total output of edible fungi. AAPs account for more than 60% of the fruiting bodies and have various biological activities. Cell wall breaking is an important process of extracting AAPs which has always been the bottleneck restricting the production of AAPs. The traditional chemical acid-base method will pollute the environment, and the yield of hot water extraction is low. In contrast, the bioenzyme method widely used because of its mild conditions and environmental friendly. In this paper, three common bioenzymes which have been widely used in food industry were used to extract AAPs, and Box–Behnken design to improve the yield of AAPs. The results show that AAP-C had high yield and strong antioxidant activity. This study could provide a reference for the industrial production of AAPs.

Background: Stress urinary incontinence (SUI), the most common form of urinary incontinence, is a condition that affects many women. It is characterized by involuntary urine leakage during activities that increase abdominal pressure, such as sneezing, coughing, or physical exertion, according to the International Continence Society. SUI affects patients’ quality of life and causes depression and emotional disorders, which negatively influences physical and mental health. The participants in the studies in this review comprised women with mild to moderate SUI, because there are more female patients than male patients, and most patients with severe SUI are treated surgically. Moreover, after retrieval, there were no systematic reviews or network meta-analyses (NMAs) of conservative treatments, such as electroacupuncture (EA), in women with mild to moderate SUI. Objective: This study aims to investigate the efficacy of electroacupuncture among women with mild to moderate SUI using an NMA. Methods: Randomized clinical trials related to conservative treatments for SUI will be searched in 5 English and 3 Chinese literature databases: EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang, and the Chinese BioMedical Literature Database. The search period for these 8 electronic databases will be from 2002 to 2022. The PROSPERO database and the International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (INPLASY) database will also be searched. Two reviewers will independently complete the research selection. After screening the studies, 2 other researchers will extract the data, and the quality of the included studies will be evaluated according to the quality standards specified in the Cochrane Collaboration Tool (version 2). The primary outcomes will be the change in urine leakage determined by a 1-hour pad test and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short Form (ICIQ-SF) scores at baseline and at the conclusion of the follow-up. The secondary outcomes will be 72-hour incontinence episodes, residual bladder volume, effective rate, urodynamic indexes, and other reported measurements. Stata (version 14.0; StataCorp) and Review Manager (RevMan version 5.3; Cochrane) will be implemented for data synthesis and meta-analysis. Results: The results are not yet accessible because this is a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis. The protocol was registered on INPLASY on February 22, 2023. By April 6, 2023, we had completed the literature search of the 8 databases and completed the selection and data extraction of the articles. Conclusions: The results of this systematic review will demonstrate the efficacy of EA among women with mild to moderate SUI. The results will provide evidence for clinicians and guideline makers to choose suitable treatments for SUI. Trial Registration: International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (INPLASY) 202320098; https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2023-2-0098/ International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/55870