An exploratory study from the UK suggests that acupuncture and moxibustion can help improve quality of life for cancer survivors with lymphoedema. The single-arm observational clinical study recruited 35 breast (BC) and head and neck cancer (HNC) survivors who had experienced mild-to-moderate lymphoedema for three or more months, following cancer treatment. Participants received seven individualised acupuncture treatments (S1), and six optional additional treatments (S2). Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile (MYMOP) scores for BC participants improved by an average of 1.28 points (on a 7-point scale) for S1, and 1.41 for S2. MYMOP scores for HNC participants improved by 2.29 points for S1 and 0.94 for S2. In addition, improvements in scores for pain and vitality were significant to four weeks after treatment.

Assessing the feasibility of using acupuncture and moxibustion to improve quality of life for cancer survivors with upper body lymphoedema. Eur J Oncol Nurs. 2011 Sep 12.