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Real, sham acupuncture improved patient-reported outcomes in breast cancer
Patient-reported outcomes improved among women with breast cancer who received real and sham acupuncture, according to results of a dual-center, randomized controlled study.
The analysis included 47 women who had received aromatase inhibitors and had treatment-associated musculoskeletal symptoms. All patients were postmenopausal with stage 0 to stage III breast cancer.
Ting Bao
“The current interventions for musculoskeletal side effects are limited to oral analgesics and exercise,” Ting Bao, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, said in a press release. “But the efficacy of these approaches is limited, and long-term use of oral analgesics can be challenging. If patients are open to acupuncture, this is a reasonable alternative for them.”
Bao and colleagues assigned 23 patients to real acupuncture and 24 patients to sham acupuncture for 8 weeks. Baseline characteristics were comparable between the two arms.
At week 8, patients in both arms reported improved scores on the Hot Flash-Related Daily Interference Scale (real, P=.014; sham, P=.043) and National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project menopausal symptoms questionnaire (real, P=.022; sham, P=.005) compared with baseline scores.
The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale scores (P=.022), hot flash severity (P=.006) and hot flash frequency (P=.011) also improved among patients who received real acupuncture.
Patients treated with sham acupuncture demonstrated improvements in the European quality-of-life survey (P=.022).
Real acupuncture reduced hot flash severity (P˂.001) and frequency (P˂.001) scores more significantly among black patients compared with non-Hispanic white patients.
“We found that patients with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer taking an aromatase inhibitor showed significant improvement in some symptoms, especially hot flashes, after eight weekly treatments with real acupuncture or sham acupuncture,” Bao said. “If we really want to find something that will help patients, acupuncture is a reasonable alternative to drug therapy, which can produce its own set of side effects.”
Disclosure: The researchers report consultant roles with and research funding from GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer.