Objective To investigate the therapeutic efficacy and underlying mechanism of an external Chinese medicine technique—fire needling in managing moderate acne vulgaris. Methods Sixty‐nine patients with moderate (grade II and III) acne were enrolled in this assessor‐blinded, randomized, controlled clinical trial. Participants were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive fire needle therapy (on the basis of topical application of fusidic acid and adapalene) or topical drugs alone (adapalene gel and fusidic acid) for 8 weeks. Clinical photographs, acne severity scores, and serum levels of IL‐8, IL‐36, and TSLP were assessed at baseline (T0w), 4 weeks (T4w), and 8 weeks (T8w). The data were analyzed by t test or nonparametric test. Results A total of 25 patients in the trial group (fire needle therapy + topical treatment) and 22 patients in the control group (topical treatment) completed interviews. The interaction between time and group was statistically significant ( F = 4.556, p = 0.018). Additionally, serum levels of IL‐8 ( p < 0.001), IL‐36 ( p < 0.001), and TSLP ( p < 0.001) were significantly higher in the acne patients compared to nonacne subjects. The decrease in IL‐36 and TSLP before and after treatment in the fire needle group was more pronounced than the control group ( p = 0.045, p = 0.012, respectively). However, no significant difference was found in the reduction of IL‐8 between the two groups. Conclusion This study demonstrated that fire needle therapy has a significant efficacy in moderate acne treatment. The mechanism may be related to its reduction of IL‐36 and TSLP levels in serum.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.