A pilot randomized controlled trial of acupuncture at the Si Guan Xue for cancer pain

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Wai-Man Ling¹  Li-Zhu Lin²  To-Yi Lam²  Li-Ming Lu³ 

[1] Department of Clinical Oncology, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, 3 Lok Man Road, Chai Wan, Hong Kong;Department of Oncology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, 510405, Guangzhou, China;The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, 510120, Guangzhou, China;

关键词: Acupuncture;    Si guan Xue;    Cancer pain;    Randomized controlled trial;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12906-017-1838-5

 received in 2016-11-20, accepted in 2017-06-13,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

sBackgroundPain is a common symptom in cancer patients. Acupuncture is a suggested treatment for a wide range of clinical conditions, usually for its beneficial effects on pain control. Si guan xue (the four points) have been widely used in clinical practice, and has shown that it is highly effective, effective in obtaining qi, shows strong acupuncture stimulation, and is simple to manipulate and safe to use. Therefore, the aim of this study is to test the protocol and safety of acupuncture at the si guan xue in the management of cancer pain.MethodsThis is a single-blind, randomized controlled pilot trial. 42 patients with moderate to severe cancer pain were randomly assigned to three different arms with seven sessions of treatment; that is, treatment arm 1 (the si guan xue arm, n = 14), treatment arm 2 (the si guan xue plus commonly used acupoints arm, n = 14) and the control arm (the commonly used acupoints arm n = 14). Primary outcomes included acupuncture relieving cancer pain, and patients’ subjective improvement as measured by the Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC). Secondary outcomes included the scores of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) and Karnofsky’s Performance Status (KPS).ResultsThe analysis showed that the cancer pain reduction in treatment arm 2 was most prominent on day 5 when compared with the control arm (P<0.05). There was no difference in the scores of PGIC, EORTC QLQ-C30 or KPS among the three groups (P>0.05). Furthermore, no serious adverse events were observed.ConclusionsThese results indicate that acupuncture at the si guan xue plus commonly used acupoints tends to be effective in reducing cancer pain. However, the sample size was small, and a future multi-centre study with a larger sample size is warranted.Trial registrationChiCTR-IOR-15007471 (Retroactively registered on 28 NOV 2015)

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017

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