On the back burner

21.04.2004

Elsevier kindly allowed my to reprint this article here. The original was published in "The Lancet", 2002, Vol 359, No 9310, page 925: Ho et al, "On the back burner"

Diesen Artikel darf ich hier wiedergeben dank der freundlichen Erlaubnis des Elsevier Verlags. Das Original wurde veröffentlicht in "The Lancet", 2002, Vol 359, No 9310, page 925: Ho et al, "On the back burner"

Aribert Deckers

A 50-year-old man presented with multiple, circular, erythematous lesions over his back (figure). Each lesion measured 5 cm in diameter and most comprised blisters containing straw coloured fluid. The patient had a long-standing history of low back pain and had visited a herbalist in mainland China who applied multiple suction flasks over his back. The therapy lasted for over 2 h but was abandoned because of excruciating pain. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been practised in Hong Kong as a major alternative medicine. Many patients still receive TCM treatment from amateur practitioners and experience peculiar complications such as heavy metal poisoning, aplastic anaemia, chylothorax, and in this case, suction burns. The elusive scientific basis and paucity of systematic training programmes in TCM required to maintain high professional standards are problems that need to be addressed.

Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong (W S Ho FRCSEd, S Y Ying FRCSEd, A Burd FRCSEd)

Direct link to Elsevier: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01406736

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