Clinical Study on Long-Term Treatment of Ankylosing Spondylitis with Integrative Medicine

Ａｎｋｙｌｏｓｉｎｇｓｐｏｎｄｙｌｉｔｉｓ（ＡＳ）ｉｓａｒｈｅｕｍａｔｉｃｄｉｓｅａｓｅｗｉｔｈｈｉｇｈｉｎｃｉｄｅｎｃｅ，ｉｎｄｕｃ ｉｎｇｄｉｓａｂｉｌｉｔｙａｎｄｉｎｖａｄｉｎｇｔｈｅｓｐｉｎａｌａｘｉａｌｊｏｉｎｔａｓｉｔｓｃｈｉｅｆｃｈａｒａｃｔ

Clinical study on long-term treatment of ankylosing spondylitis with integrative medicine

Objective: To seek for a new method of integrated Chinese and western medic ine in treating ankylosing spondylitis (AS) to control the diseas e development, shorten the therapeutic course and lower disability rate. Methods: Patients of AS enrolled in this study were 106 cases in Group A, who were persistently treated with traditional Chinese med icine and western medicine (TCM-WM) for over 10 mont hs, 48 cases in Group B treated with WM and 34 cases in Group C treated with non -steroid anti-inflammatory and analgesic agents. They were followed-up for 2 years. Results: (1) Short-term effect: The markedly effective rate in the 3 groups was 73.58%, 47.92% and 5.88% respectively, and the total effective rate was 96.23%, 87.50% and 41.18% respectively. The compari son of Group A with Group B and C showed significant difference, the effect in G r oup A was superior to that in Group B and Group C (χ 2=10.58, P<0.01 and χ 2=67.76, P<0.01 respectively). (2) Results of 2-year follow-up: the recurrence rate in Group A was 18.37% (9/49), it was insignificantly different from that in Group B (7/23, 30.43%,χ 2=1.32, P>0.05), but significantly different from that in Group C (8/12, 66.67%,χ 2=11.19, P<0.01). Conclusion: Long-term TCM-WM therapy, which combin ed the advantages of Chinese and western medicine, was a practical method in treating AS with reliable effect, few side-effects, and therefore is worth pop ularizing.