ArticleFrontiers in medicine2026
Effects of moxibustion on autophagy and ferroptosis in a disease-syndrome combination rat model of rheumatoid arthritis.
Article in Frontiers in medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by persistent synovial inflammation, fibroblast-like synoviocyte hyperplasia, and progressive cartilage and bone destruction. Moxibustion is widely used as a non-pharmacological adjunctive intervention for RA; however, its specific therapeutic effects and its associations with autophagy and ferroptosis remain insufficiently characterized. This protocol describes a randomized, controlled, assessor-blinded preclinical study designed to evaluate moxibustion in a disease-syndrome combination rat model of RA. Eligible rats will undergo exposure to a controlled wind-, cold-, and dampness-related environment followed by Complete Freund's Adjuvant (CFA) injection. After successful model induction has been confirmed using prespecified criteria, animals will be randomly allocated to a normal control group, an untreated model group, a heat-matched sham-moxibustion group, a Zusanli (ST36) moxibustion group, and a methotrexate active-comparator group. All animals will undergo standardized handling and restraint procedures. Moxibustion will be administered for 20 min once daily for 15 consecutive days, whereas methotrexate will be administered at the prespecified dose and frequency. The primary outcome will be the histopathological synovitis score. Secondary outcomes will include paw volume, arthritis index, joint structural damage, serum and synovial inflammatory mediators, and functional assessments. Autophagy will be evaluated using LC3-II/LC3-I, SQSTM1/p62, Beclin-1, and complementary assessments of autophagic flux. Ferroptosis-related outcomes will include GPX4, SLC7A11, ACSL4, lipid peroxidation, glutathione, reactive oxygen species, and tissue iron levels. Outcome assessment and statistical analysis will be performed by investigators blinded to group allocation. This study is expected to provide a reproducible framework for distinguishing the specific effects of moxibustion from non-specific heat, restraint, and handling effects, and to generate mechanistic evidence supporting subsequent translational and clinical investigations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.