Efficacy And Safety of Acupoint Catgut Embedding for Perennial Allergic Rhinitis: Protocol for a Randomized Clinical Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a noninfectious chronic inflammatory disease of the nasal mucosa characterized mainly by itching, sneezing, nasal congestion, and rhinorrhea. It is mediated by immunoglobulin E (IgE). AR is one of the most common allergic diseases globally, affecting 10% to 20% of the population worldwide, with some regions even reaching rates as high as 50%, posing a global health issue. The prevalence of AR has been increasing since the 1960s, with a significant increase in recent years. At present, modern medicine-including desensitization therapy, the use of antiallergic drugs, antihistamines, hormones, and other treatments-can improve symptoms or regulate the immune system. However, both short- and long-term efficacy remain limited, as symptoms often recur after treatment cessation, and long-term drug use is associated with toxicity and side effects. OBJECTIVE: Acupoint catgut embedding (ACE) therapy is widely used to treat AR in China. ACE therapy has been reported to be effective in managing the symptoms of AR, but the evidence faces methodological limitations. Therefore, we designed a parallel-arm, randomized controlled, multicentered, placebo-controlled, and single-blinded trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ACE therapy for AR. METHODS: This study will be a parallel-group, patient-blind, placebo-controlled randomized controlled trial conducted in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Ningxia Chinese Medicine Research Center, and the Affiliated Hospital of Shanxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The trial consists of a 4-week treatment period, along with a 3-month follow-up. After providing written informed consent, eligible participants will be randomized at a ratio of 1: 1 into one of 2 groups: the ACE group receiving treatment and the sham ACE group. Both groups will receive conventional loratadine treatment. RESULTS: The funding began in January 2022. The study was initiated on February 1, 2025, and will end in February 2026. Patient recruitment has already started, and the study results will be released in March 2026. CONCLUSIONS: We expect that this research will provide important insights into the efficacy of ACE treatment for AR and generate robust data for the foundation of future research in this field. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2500095634; https://www.chictr.org.cn/historyversionpubEN.html?regno=ChiCTR2500095634. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/63933.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.023 | 0.019 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.013 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.058 | 0.008 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".