This study aims to test the feasibility of a randomised clinical trial to evaluate how acupuncture affects atopic dermatitis (AD) symptoms and quality of life and to explore potential biomarkers that may be associated with AD. It is a sham-controlled trial in which 30 eligible patients will be randomly allocated in a 1 : 1 : 1 ratio to one of three groups: verum acupuncture (VA) group 1 (3 time...

Case report A 58 year old non-smoking caucasian woman noticed an itchy rash on her buttocks on 29 October 1983, two days before returning to London from her holiday in Barbados. Her travelling companions were unaffected. On her return similar lesions developed on her legs and abdomen. On 15 November she noticed a cough, which was dry until 25 November, when she produced a little white sputum. T...

To find new antipruritic herbal medicines for pruritus, we screened the methanol extracts of seven herbal medicines which have been used to treat dermatologic diseases, testing them on mouse models of acute and chronic itch. When administrated perorally (p.o.) at a dose of 200 mg/kg, methanol extracts of Sophora flavescens and Cnidium monnieri, but not the others, significantly inhibited a sero...

Lichen planus (LP) is an inflammatory mucocutaneous disease, showing a wide variety of clinical subtypes. The classic presentation of LP involves the appearance of polygonal, flat-topped, violaceous papules and plaques with reticulated white lines, termed "Wickham's striae". Cutaneous lesions tend to be extremely pruritic, and this symptom does not subside after common antipruritic treatment. M...

Generalised pruritus occurs in 25-50/ of cases of polycythaemia vera. Neither the cause nor the most effective treatment has been established. A relation with iron deficiency has been suggested and relief after iron treatment recorded.' Cholestyramine has been reported to have an antipruritic action in polycythaemia vera, which might imply an association with raised concentrations of conjugated...

BACKGROUND Itch is one of the most frequent skin complaints and its treatment is challenging. From a neurophysiological perspective, two distinct peripheral and spinothalamic pathways have been described for itch transmission: a histaminergic pathway and a nonhistaminergic pathway mediated by protease-activated receptors (PAR)2 and 4. The nonhistaminergic itch pathway can be activated exogenous...

Recently, we showed that a methanol extract of Ganoderma lucidum inhibits scratching, an itch-related response, induced by intradermal injections of some pruritogens in mice. The present study investigated whether G. lucidum extract would inhibit allergic itch. In mice sensitized with an extract of salivary gland of mosquito (ESGM), an intradermal injection of ESGM elicited scratching, which wa...

Sapindus emarginatus is important indigenous plant with lots of traditional importance belongs to family sapindaceae. It is commonly called as Soap nut tree which is found in most of the hilly regions of India. Each and every part of the plant is used traditionally in various ailments. Trees of genus Sapindus are cultivated in many parts of India. The secondary metabolites present in Sapindus e...

This study investigated whether immediate acupuncture effects in the acupoint are histamine dependent. Both histamine injection and manual acupuncture stimulation increased the pain threshold (PT) after treatment compared with the model group (P < 0.01), producing an analgesic effect. After pretreatment with clemastine, an H1 receptor antagonist and an antipruritic, the increase in the animals'...

A 35% EtOH extract of the fruits of Chaenomeles sinensis, long utilized as a folk medicine for cough, significantly inhibited the pruritogenic agent compound 48/80 (COM)-induced scratching behavior in mice. Antipruritic activity-guided fractionation and purification yielded active quercetin, apigenin, and catechin derivatives, which exhibited significant inhibitory effects on COM-induced scratc...