The mechanism of acupuncture on hyperplasia of mammary glands by the pathway of vagus nerve

Abstract

Objective The experiment was designed to study the therapeutic mechanism of Tong Tiao acupuncture in the treatment of mammary gland hyperplasia (MGH) on the rat model. Methods A total of 75 healthy unpregnant female SD rats were randomly divided into six groups: blank, model, control group, vagus cutting therapy, sham operation, and vagus cutting with non-treatment group. All the groups except the blank group were prepared by MGH rat model. The vagus cutting therapy and vagus cutting with non-treatment group were treated by cutting the right cervical vagus nerve, while the sham operation group was treated by exposing the vagus nerve without any operation. All the treatment groups were treated with Tong Tiao. The rat papillary height was measured. The breast tissue morphology and breast ultrastructure were observated. And the flow cytometry in rat peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+ were calculated. Results Compared with the model group, the papillary height (1.22 mm ± 0.21 mm, 1.24 mm ± 0.20 mm vs. 1.53 mm ± 0.16 mm) in the normal treatment and the sham treatment group decreased significantly the vagus cutting therapy and vagus cutting non-treatment group showed no difference (P>0.05). Compared with the model group, the Mammary gland morphology and ultrastructure in the normal treatment group, the sham operation group and the vagus cutting therapy groups were improved, but the vagus cutting non-treatment group showed on improvement. Compared with model group, the serum CD3+(61.5% ± 10.5%, 61.1% ± 12.4%, 59.8% ± 11.8% vs. 57.7% ± 9.4%), CD4+(37.2% ± 8.9%, 37.9% ± 10.9%, 36.1% ± 12.2% vs. 34.6% ± 6.9%), CD4+/CD8+(1.59 ± 0.8, 1.58 ± 0.8, 1.38 ± 0.6 vs. 1.23 ± 0.7) in the normal treatment group, the sham treatment group and vagus cutting therapy group, elevated significantly (P 0.05). Compared with model group, the serum CD8+ (24.2% ± 11.3%, 24.5% ± 10.6%, 25.5% ± 8.8% vs. 27.7% ± 9.9%) in the normal treatment group, sham treatment group and vagus cutting therapy group decreased significantly lower (P 0.05). Conclusions the mechanism of acupuncture treatment for MGH may be related to the vagus nerve by regulating the CD3+, CD4+, CD8+ and CD4+/CD8+ levels of T lymphocytes. Key words: Electroacupuncture; Vagus nerve; Mammary gland hyperplasia; T lymphocyte subsets; Rats