Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of acupuncture at thirteen evil acupoints in patients with hepatic encephalopathy

and to explore its possible mechanism.Methods Patients with hepatic encephalopathy were randomly divided into acupuncture group(n=38)and western medicine group(n=36).Patients in the western medicine group were treated by intravenous injection of aspartate ornithine and branched chain amino acids

and those in the acupuncture group were treated with acupuncture at thirteen evil acupoints on the basis of the western medicine.All the patients were treated for 1 week.The liver function and blood ammonia were measured by automatic biochemical analyzer.The changes of plasma β-endorphin were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA).Results Following the treatment

of the 36 and 38h epatic encephalopathy patients in the western medicine and acupuncture groups

12 and 18 experienced a marked improvement in their symptoms

13 and 16 were effective

and 11 and 4 invalid

with the effective rates being 69.4% and 89.5%

respectively.Compared with pre-treatment

the levels of serum aspartate aminotransferase

alanine aminotransferase

total bilirubin

and plasma β-endorphin and blood ammonia were significantly lower in both western medicine and acupuncture groups(P<0.01)

and the therapeutic effects of the acupuncture group were obviously superior to those of the western medicine group in the above mentioned indexes(P<0.05

P<0.01).Conclusion Treatment of acupuncture at thirteen evil acupoints combined with western medicine can enhance the curative effect of hepatic encephalopathy

improve patients' liver function and decrease the levels of plasma ammonia andβ-endorphin.