A 3-Arm, Randomized, Controlled Trial of Heat-Sensitive Moxibustion Therapy to Determine Superior Effect among Patients with Lumbar Disc Herniation

Systematic reviews of moxibustion for LDH have identified ponderable evidence, especially for heat-sensitive moxibustion (HSM). Therefore, we designed and carried out the large sample trial to evaluate it. 456 patients were recruited from 4 centers in China and were randomly divided into three groups by the ratio of 1 : 1 : 1 to HSM (152) group, conventional moxibustion (152) group, and conventional drug plus acupuncture (152) group. Compared with usual care, there was a statistically significant reduction in mean M-JOA score at 2 weeks and 6 months for HSM (3.8 ± 2.6 versus 8.5 ± 2.9; 3.7 ± 2.2 versus 10.1 ± 2.9) and conventional moxibustion (7.9 ± 3.0 versus 8.5 ± 2.9; 8.9 ± 3.1 versus 10.1 ± 2.9). Compared with conventional moxibustion group, HSM group showed greater improvement in all the outcomes. The mean dose of moxibustion was 41.13 ± 5.26 (range 21–60) minutes in the HSM group. We found that HSM was more effective in treating patients with LDH, compared with conventional moxibustion and conventional drug plus acupuncture. This finding indicated that the application of moxibustion on the heat-sensitive points is a good moxibustion technique in treating disease.