Efficacy of Electroacupuncture as an Adjunctive Treatment in Gastrointestinal Motility in Patients After Abdominal Surgery

A total of 80 volunteers of patients underwent abdominal surgery will be recruited from the intensive care unit of China Medical University Hospital. After diagnosis by surgeon, these patients will be assigned to receive the conventional drug alone or the conventional drug combined electroacupuncture treatment. All participants receive intravenous injection the conventional drug, Metoclopramide, every 12 hours in the trial. Electroacupuncture, twice daily for three days, is administered 48-72 hours after abdominal surgery. Visual analogue scale, feeding volume, gastric residual volume and assessment of adverse events will be done for every visit. Laboratory biochemistry analysis and other assessments including Visual Analogue Scale, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score will be completed at baseline and the end of intervention(3 days after initation of the intervention). Physiological and operative severity scores for the enumeration of mortality and morbidity (POSSUM) score will be done at the baseline. Instrumental examinations including heart rate variability and traditional Chinese medicine four examinations will be given before and after intervention. We expect that the efficacy of combined electroacupuncture with conventional drug is superior to conventional drug only in alleviation of gastrointestinal distension or/and improvement of motility in patients who underwent abdominal surgery. Moreover, we will further speculate the mechanism by analyzing laboratory data.