Objective To observe radicular pain changes of rat model with acute nerve root irritation after spinal manipulative therapy and discuss the anti-inflammatory and biological mechanism of the manipulation.Methods 90 male SD rats were randomly divided into six groups with 18 rats in each group, including a blank group with no interference, a sham group with a sham surgery, a model group with an acute nerve root irritation set up by surgery but no other interference, a mobilization group with a simulating mobilization treatment on the L,5-6, an etoricoxib group with etoricoxib lavaged.Common behaviors were observed and paw withdraw latency（PWL） induced by heat irritation was measured 1 day before surgery and on day 3,5,9,15,21 after surgery in 6 rats of each group.The L,5, dorsal root ganglion（DRG） at the operative side were collected on day 9, 21 respectively after surgery for detecting the nitrite content in another 6 rats of each group.Results No obvious motor dysfunction was seen in all rats.The PWL in mobilization and etoricoxib group were significantly higher than that of the model group respectively（P,<,0.05）; but no significant difference was found in PWL between these two groups（P,>,0.05）.There was no significant difference in nitrite content of L,5, DRG between mobilization and etoricoxib group（P,>,0.05）, but there were significantly decreasing when compared with that of model group respectively（P,<,0.01）.Conclusion Spinal mobilization can obviously alleviate inflammation irritation and pain sensitization with a similar effect caused by etoricoxib lavage.The therapeutic mechanism of spinal mobilization might be related with a reduction of nitrite content in acute nerve root irritation of rat model and improvement of absorption of inflammatory factors.