A ten-week course of acupuncture can lead to measurable improvement in symptoms of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), according to a British research team.
In a pragmatic trial, 108 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy who were experiencing CIPN were randomised to either acupuncture plus usual care (medication with gabapentin/pregabalin and/or amitriptyline) or usual care alone, for ten weeks. Participants in the acupuncture group received a weekly, 40-minute, standardised acupuncture session.
At week 10, 68% of cases were classified as successes in the acupuncture group compared with 33% in the control group, a significant difference. Beneficial effects were seen in the secondary outcome data in favour of acupuncture, including clinicians’ grading of neuropathy, cancer-related quality of life, subjective CIPN scores and patient-reported pain scores.