Cancer and Healthy

This article focuses on acupuncture and how it helps to reduce the side-effects of chemotherapy.

In a review published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, certain types of acupuncture-point stimulation may relieve chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting.

Last year the Journal of the American Medical Association also published a study which reported: patients receiving high-dose chemotherapy found that electro-acupuncture treatments combined with anti-nausea medication were more effective than medication alone in controlling their chemo-related vomiting.

According to cancer experts, this particular study adds to the evidence that non-traditional therapies can be helpful to patients suffering side-effects of chemotherapy. As a result, an increasing number of well-designed studies are now focusing on complementary and alternative therapies.

Additional support for acupuncture to assist in alleviating the side-effects of chemotherapy was also offered at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December 2000.

David Rosenthal, MD, Chair of the American Cancer Society's national advisory committee on complementary and alternative medicine says that 'patients are finding that acupuncture can sometimes be effective in dealing with pain, nausea and treatment of mucositis'. He adds that acupuncture treatment is being provided at many cancer centres in the US, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston where appointments are totally booked up.