Acupuncture Regulates Serum Differentially Expressed Proteins in Patients with Chronic Atrophic Gastritis: A Quantitative iTRAQ Proteomics Study

Table 2

Clinical features of CAG patients before and after acupuncture treatment.

Outcome measures	Before acupuncture treatment; n = 8	After acupuncture treatment; n = 8	value
Clinical symptoms
TCM syndrome scores	62.13 ± 6.77	28.38 ± 2.30	0.000^a
SF-36 scores	108.69 ± 1.78	116.53 ± 2.07	0.000^a
SDS scores	36.44 ± 1.47	30.44 ± 0.50	0.001^a
SAS scores	35.50 ± 1.07	31.56 ± 0.58	0.008^a
Histopathologicalobservation
Atrophy of gastric mucosa (−/+/++/+++)	0/2/6/0	2/4/2/0	0.037^b
Gastric intestinal metaplasia (−/+/++/+++)	0/4/4/0	4/3/1/0	0.025^b

Atrophy of gastric mucosa: (−): There was no decrease in the number of inherent glands; (+): The number of inherent glands decreased by no more than 1/3 of the original glands; (++): The number of inherent glands decreased between 1/3 and 2/3 of the original glands; (+++): The number of inherent glands decreased by more than 2/3, with only a few remaining glands or even complete disappearance. Gastric intestinal metaplasia: (−): There was no intestinal metaplasia in gastric mucosa; (+): The area of intestinal metaplasia occupies less than 1/3 of the total area; (++): The area of intestinal metaplasia occupies less than 2/3 of the total area; (+++): The area of intestinal metaplasia occupies more than 2/3 of the total area. TCM: Traditional Chinese Medicine, SF-36: the MOS item short from health survey, SAS: Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, SDS: Self-Rating Depression Scale. ^ap value by paired samples t-test, and ^bp value by Kruskal–Wallis test.