I would like to congratulate the authors on their literature research
covering a broad spectrum of medical and veterinary textbooks, journals and proceedings of
congresses. Nevertheless, I would also like to challenge some of their conclusions
concerning the validity of the claimed therapeutical success of the GV26.
The paper gives an overall impression that the clinical efficacy of acupuncture
stimulation at GV26 is well established in numerous clinical conditions. This could be
argued. In several studies, GV26 was used together with a number of other acupuncture
points, or acupuncture was combined with herbs and drugs. How then can one be sure that
the use of GV26 in the complex management of post-partum shock in women or sore back in
humans was the essential factor in the given formula?
Many anecdotal reports are quoted where the point was used under poorly described clinical
circumstances, often lacking essential details on diagnosis and management. Even well
documented case reports cannot be considered to be a solid base for general claims on
clinical efficacy. This would be true especially in the emergency medicine of
life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular arrest and coma.
One should not forget that numerous clinical terms have different meanings, depending on
the context. This can be well demonstrated by the concept of shock which has an
essentially different meaning in TCM texts as compared to modern medicine. Consequently,
because of the paradigm shift, uncritical pooling of data from both resources can lead to
inappropriate conclusions.
Pooling of data from different species and different experimental models can be also
misleading. This can be demonstrated by a comparison of studies of Dill et al (1988) and
numerous papers of Lee et al on circulatory effects of GV26 in anaesthetised horses and
dogs respectively.
I hope that these comments will help readers to better integrate the valuable data
accumulated by the authors.
See also: "Emergency Acupoint Renzhong (Jenchung, GV26): A Bibliography and Review from Textbook Sources" by Phil Rogers MRCVS and Roman Skarda DVM, PhD