Evidence mapPaperPMID 41256233Full record

Trial reportJournal of multidisciplinary healthcare2025

Efficacy of Fire Needle Therapy Combined with Doxycycline Hydrochloride in the Management of Moderate-to-Severe Acne Vulgaris: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Tao Zhu, Jin-Zhen Li, Shi-Yue Sun, Yu-Fang Ji, Lai-Xi Ji

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In one paragraph

Trial report in Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Tao Zhu *School of Acu-Mox and Tuina, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, People's Republic of China.
Jin-Zhen Li *Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fujian Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Fuzhou, People's Republic of China.
Shi-Yue SunInstitute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Yu-Fang JiSchool of Acu-Mox and Tuina, Shanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Jinzhong, People's Republic of China.
Lai-Xi JiSchool of Acu-Mox and Tuina, Shanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Jinzhong, People's Republic of China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Objective: Fire needle therapy has shown promise in treating acne vulgaris (AV), improving facial lesions and patient quality of life. This study aims to investigate the effects of combining fire needle therapy with doxycycline hydrochloride tablets (DHT) on the Global Acne Grading System (GAGS), the échelle d'évaluation clinique des cicatrices d'acné (ECCA) grading scale, the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and the serum levels of inflammatory factors interleukin-17 (IL-17), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in patients with moderate-to-severe AV. Methods: 70 patients with moderate-to-severe AV were randomly assigned to the control group (n=35) to receive oral DHT treatment once a day and the intervention group (n=35) to be treated with fire needle therapy on the basis of DHT once a week. The total treatment duration for both groups was 8 weeks. Therapeutic efficacy was evaluated at the 4-week and 8-week marks. The primary outcome measure evaluated was the GAGS score. The secondary outcome measures included the ECCA score, the DLQI score, and the serum levels of the inflammatory factors IL-17, TNF-α, and IL-6. Results: Compared to baseline data, both groups exhibited marked improvements in skin lesions at both the 4-week and 8-week treatment marks. Significant reductions were observed in the GAGS, ECCA, and DLQI scores, as well as in the serum levels of the inflammatory factors IL-17, TNF-α, and IL-6. Notably, the intervention group demonstrated significantly greater improvements than the control group at both the 4-week and 8-week assessments. Conclusion: An 8-week regimen of fire needle therapy combined with DHT improved lesion severity, scar symptoms, quality of life, and serum inflammatory cytokine levels in patients with moderate-to-severe AV compared to DHT monotherapy.

Indexed as

acne vulgarisclinical traildoxycyclineneedle therapyskin lesions

Identifiers

PMID41256233
PMCPMC12621586

What Socratic holds

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.