American Journal of Ethnomedicine

The effectiveness of leech therapy on the severity of diabetic neuropathy: A randomized controlled trial

10^th International Conference on Pharmacognosy and Medicinal Plants
May 26, 2022 | Webinar

Farshad Alemi, Maryam Azimi, Reihaneh Moeini, Hoda Shirafkan, Mohammadali
Bayani, Morteza Mojahedi and Haleh Tajadini

Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran

ScientificTracks Abstracts: Am J Ethnomed

Abstract

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is one of the most common causes of disability in diabetic patients. Applying a method to achieve the highest therapeutic effect in patients is considerable. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate leech therapy in diabetic neuropathy of lower limbs in comparison to gabapentin as a standard method. Method: This randomized controlled parallel-group clinical trial was conducted among patients with type II diabetes who were diagnosed with lower limp diabetic neuropathy and referred to specialized outpatient clinics of Babol, Mazandaran province, Iran from 23 September 2020 to 17 March 2021. Patients were randomly divided into two groups. One group treated with leech therapy and another group treated with gabapentin as standard method. The severity of neuropathy assessed any 15 days until 45th day. The VAS, NSS, NDS and EMG-NCV used for assessing study outcomes. The repeated measure and Friedman tests were used by SPSS.V.23. Results: The results of our study indicated that pain (P-value:0.03), numbness (P-value≤0.001) and paranesthesia (P-value:0.01) significantly reduced for patients with leech therapy versus patients with gabapentin in 45th day of study. The total NSS (P-value≤0.001) and total NDS (P-value≤0.001) improved considerably for patients with leech therapy over in 45th day and in comparison to patients with gabapentin. Conclusion: The results of our study showed that using leech therapy for patients with diabetic neuropathy was much better in comparison to chemical medications like gabapentin. The severity and symptoms of neuropathy greatly improved for patients treated with leech therapy versus patients with gabapentin. Keywords: Diabetes, Gabapentin, Iran, Leech therapy, Neuropathy.

Biography

Dr Haleh tajadini is from Kerman Medical University, Kerman Iran. she studied in Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences she is working on Treatment patient with Traditional Persian Medicine and research in this field. Her research interest is Complementary and Alternative Medicine.