In the present paper

the authors review the development of experimental and clinical studies on acupuncture treatment of bronchial asthma in recent 10 years.Regarding clinical studies

results showed that acupuncture could 1) regulate cardiac-pulmonary function;and 2) adjust immune state and relieve inflammatory reactions in bronchial asthma patients.Animal experiments showed that acupuncture could function in 1) improving pulmonary function;2) reducing accumulation of the peripheral eosinophile granulocytes(EOS)

relieving the infiltration of inflammatory cells in the air-passage mucosa and promoting the apoptosis of EOS in the lung and air-passages;3) down-regulating the expression of air-passage remodeling-related protein insulin growth factor-1;4) suppressing the secretion of tumor necrosis factor and endothelin;5) attenuating allergic reaction;6) regulating neuroendocrine activity;and 7) modulating intracellular second messenger activities.However

rigorous clinical study design is not enough

so that the reliability of the results is limited.In spite of many indicators of animal experiments have been selected

but their correlations are not in close association

resulting in poor complementation and mutual identification of the acquired findi-ngs.For this reason

its clinical efficacies need to be researched further according to principles of evidence-based medicine.