Efficacy and Safety of Fire Needle Therapy Combined With Cortex Phellodendri Compound Fluid Wet Compress for Acute Herpes Zoster: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Herpes zoster (HZ) results from a reactivation of varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which causes primary infection leading to chickenpox and remains latent in the ganglia. Fire needle therapy is a non-pharmacological treatment that combines heat therapy with traditional acupuncture. This technique involves heating sterilized needles and swiftly inserting them into specific points or areas of the skin. Chinese herbal wet compress therapy is directly delivering medications to the lesion site, facilitating rapid transdermal absorption. This method ensures stable local drug concentrations and effectively alleviates pain, swelling, and other clinical symptoms. In this study, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of fire needle therapy combined with CPCF wet compress for the treatment of acute HZ. 32 acute HZ patients were randomized into control (standard antiviral and analgesic therapy) and treated groups (standard therapy plus fire needle [5 sessions, every other day] and CPCF wet compress [3 times/day, 10 days]). After 10 days of treatment, fire needle combined with CPCF wet compress significantly enhances symptom relief, pain reduction, and quality of life in acute HZ, with favorable safety.

Inclusion criteria

• males and females, aged 18-80 years old;
• diagnosed as acute HZ with the course of disease within 7 days;
• without history of other treatment before enrollment.

Exclusion criteria

• specific types of HZ, including Ramsay Hunt Syndrom, ophthalmic, disseminated, deep, purpuric and central nervous system HZ;
• pregnancy and lactation;
• allergic to the related Chinese herbals;
• patients with contraindications to penciclovir, mecobalamin and pregabalin; (e) history of hypertrophic scar or keloid;

(f) severe cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, digestive, urinary or hematopoietic disease; (g) mental disease; (h) coagulation disorders.