Objective: To observe the effects of acupoint-application and moxibustion pretreatment on serum inflammatory cytokine and hormones of rats with adjuvant arthritis at early and secondary stages.Methods: Forty Wistar rats were randomly divided into normal

early-stage model

secondary-stage model groups

early-stage pretreatment and secondary-stage pretreatment groups.Arthritis model was established by injecting Freund's complete adjuvant(FCA

(0.1 mL)) into the rat's right hind-paw.After removing the hair and before injecting FCA respectively

a plaster made of Herba Epimedii

etc. and an ignited moxa cone(placed on the plaster) were applied to "Dazhui"(GV 14)

once every other day

8 times altogether.Rats of the 4 early-stage and secondary-stage groups were killed on the 3

(rd)

day and 16(rd) day and 16

(th)

day after injection of FCA respectively

and those of normal group also killed for collecting blood samples.The contents of serum IL-6

testosterone(T)

growth hormone(GH) and cortisol(CORT) were assayed respectively with radioimmunoassay according to the instructions of reagent kits.Results: Compared with normal group

the contents of serum IL-6

GH and CORT of early-stage-model and secondary-stage-model groups increased significantly((P

<

0.01))

and those of early-stage pretreatment groups

and serum T and GH of secondary-stage pretreatment groupsalso increased remarkably((P

<

0.05

0.01));but T level of early-stage model group decreased significantly((P

<

0.05));while in comparison with the corre-sponding model groups

the contents of T in early-stage and secondary-stage pretreatment groups increased considerably((P

<

0.05

0.01));and those of serum IL6 and GH lowered markedly((P

<

0.05));no significant differences were found among the 2 model and 2 pretreatment groups((P

>

0.05)).Conclusion: Preconditioning of acupoint-application and moxibustion at GV 14 can effectively suppress arthritis induced increase of serum IL-6 and GH levels and decrease of T to modulate inflammatory cytokine and endocrine hormones

playing a protective role in adjuvant arthritis rats.