This blog is to share the latest research and development of acupuncture and raise the awareness of alternative treatments for your conditions, and is for information only.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Acupuncture alleviates some cancer-related symptoms

Scientist in the Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre of the United States carried out many clinical trials to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture as an alternative therapy for many cancer-related symptoms. Recently they summarised their results to determine acupuncture’s role in managing cancer-related symptoms.

They reported that true acupuncture 1) significantly alleviated pain, reduced dysfunction and dry mouth after neck dissection in head and neck cancer patients; 2) markedly reduced lymphedema and arm circumference in the affected arm of patients with breast cancer; 3) obviously improved salivation production in dry mouth symptom; compared with sham acupuncture.

Both true acupuncture and sham acupuncture 1) significantly improved dyspnea of lung or breast cancer patients with dyspnea; 2) significantly reduced hot flash in patients with breast cancer; 3) significantly alleviated postoperative ileus in patients undergoing elective colectomy.

 Acupuncture was less effective in relieving fatigue after chemotherapy.

Authors suggest that acupuncture is a potential candidate for the treatment of some common cancer-related symptoms.

Reference:
B Javdan & B Cassileth, Acupuncture Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. J Acupunct Meridian Stud 2015;8(3):115e121.    http://www.jams-kpi.com/article/S2005-2901(15)00052-7/abstract

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