Hai Lu1, Bo Zhang2, Haomin Liu1, Chunhong Zhang2. 1. Graduate College of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 300193 Tianjin, China. 2. Department of Acupuncture, First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 300193 Tianjin, China.
Sir,We read with interest the article written by Shuang and Yichun (2016) entitled, A Case of Perforating Injury of Eyeball and Traumatic Cataract by Acupuncture. The article does trigger an alarm in the standardization of clinical acupuncture, but we are still confused about the case.Aiming to avoid similar accidents in the clinical practice, we decide to seriously analyze this case. Since the authors are ophthalmologists instead of acupuncturists, they do not give a detailed account of the acupuncture therapy in this article. Judging from the text and pictures, it is discovered that the perforated cornea and iris are the major cause of traumatic cataract and subsequently patient's vision loss.[1] However, there are several uncertainties about the case: First, we are curious about the selection of acupoints and its selecting principle, as well as the acupuncture manipulations adopted for cerebral infarction; second, as shown in the picture, what we find is only two holes with a diameter of 3 mm, which does not conform to the use of acupuncture needles with a diameter of 0.25 mm in clinical practice; furthermore, based on the position of the holes, it is puzzling that how we could reach the spot in acupuncture therapy. Why did the performer take no notice of the acupuncture dangers or patient's pain or bleeding at that time? If the performer did apply eye acupuncture therapy,[1] the extraocular horizontal insertion,[2] instead of needling into eyes, would be recommended. Due to the risk in needling acupoints around eyes, we are especially careful, and few people would choose them to treat cerebral infarction. We would like to clarify why the performer chooses that therapy.Due to this article's essence on the accident of acupuncture, we come to believe that a large number of acupuncturists would be interested in the article. Therefore, it is suggested that the authors should give more detailed description of the patient's history of present illness, which would objectively influence the acupuncture.
Financial support and sponsorship
This work was supported by State Chinese Medicine Administration Bureau (Specific Scientific Research of Chinese Medicine Industry, no. 201407001-6B).