Effects of Sanqi Shengyu External Application Cream and Pulsed Electromagnetic Field on Knee Osteoarthritis in Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a leading cause of disability worldwide, necessitating safe and effective therapies. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of the Sanqi Shengyu External Application Cream, an external Chinese herbal therapy (ECHT), pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF), and their combination in alleviating pain and improving function in KOA patients. METHODS: This single-blinded, multi-center randomized controlled trial enrolled 120 elderly participants with KOA (Kellgren-Lawrence grade ≥ 2). Participants were randomly allocated to one of the four groups: (1) ECHT + PEMF + exercise, (2) ECHT + exercise, (3) PEMF + exercise, or (4) exercise + health education (control). Interventions were administered 5 days/week for 4 weeks. Primary outcomes included pain (visual analog scale, VAS) and function (The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index, WOMAC), assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 4-week follow-up. Secondary outcomes encompassed muscle strength and knee range of motion (ROM). RESULTS: All groups showed significant time effects for pain and function (VAS, F = 122.9, p < 0.001; WOMAC, F = 103.7, p < 0.001). The combined therapy group demonstrated superior outcomes (reduced VAS by 3.0 points, p < 0.001), with sustained reductions in VAS (2.8 vs. baseline 5.8) and WOMAC (14.2 vs. baseline 24.8) at follow-up (p < 0.001). ECHT alone exhibited durable efficacy, while PEMF's benefits diminished post-intervention. The control group showed significant but less pronounced improvements than the active intervention groups. Muscle strength improved modestly in the combined group, but no significant ROM changes were observed. DISCUSSION: The Sanqi Shengyu External Application Cream can alleviate KOA symptoms with sustained effects in older adults, outperforming PEMF alone. Combining ECHT and PEMF yields synergistic benefits, suggesting a novel multimodal approach for KOA management. Future research should explore long-term efficacy and mechanisms of action. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Platform: www.chictr.org.cn (No. ChiCTR2400087644).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
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 teacher head, 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".