Objective: To sum up clinical studies on acupuncture for treating cerebrovascular diseases in recent years.

Methods: In this paper a review was made based on the articles related to this subject published in 4 journals of acupuncture.

Results: Acupuncture was applied for treating 2475 cases of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases, the cured rate being 54%, and the total effective rate being 97.4%.

Conclusion: Experimental studies showed that in the treatment of cerebrovascular diseases acupuncture provided the following functions: (1) Markedly decreasing blood viscosity, hemagglutination index and fibrinogen and platelet adhesion rate to improve blood circulation, and increase blood supply to the brain; (2) Remarkably regulating serum lipid levels, lowering the level of TCH, TG, and LDL-C, elevating that of HDL-C; (3) Accelerating clearance of oxygen free radicals, enhancing body's ability of anti-oxidation, decreasing lipid peroxidation (LPO) content, and increasing the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT); (4) Regulating the levels of TXA2, PGI2, NO and ET: lowing blood TXA2 and ET, elevating blood PGI2 and NO, leading to prevention of vasospasm and thrombosis; (5) Lessening the inhibition of electrical activity of the brain during cerebral ischemia, and promoting its recovery after the global reperfusion, which functions to protect the functions of the brain; (6) Reducing the ischemic volume during cerebral infarction and decreasing the edema of cortical neuronal mitochondria to protect neuronal morphological structures of the brain to provide material foundations for its functional restoration. The effects of acupuncture on enzymes in energy metabolism should further be studied.

　　By Li Baoliang.
　　Department of Acupuncture, 1st Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi College of TCM, Nanning 530032, China.