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Acupuncture May Relieve Joint
Pain Caused By Some Breast Cancer
Treatments
A new study, led by researchers at the Herbert Irving
Comprehensive
Cancer
Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical
Center,
demonstrates that acupuncture may be an effective therapy for joint pain
and
stiffness in breast cancer patients who are being treated with commonly
used
hormonal therapies. Results were published in the Journal of Clinical
Oncology.
Joint pain and stiffness are common side effects of aromatase
inhibitor
therapy, in which the synthesis of estrogen is blocked. The therapy,
which is a
common and effective treatment for early-stage,
hormone-receptor-positive breast
cancer in post-menopausal women, has been shown in previous research to
cause
some joint pain and stiffness in half of women being treated.
"Since aromatase inhibitors have become an increasingly popular
treatment
option for some breast cancer patients, we aimed to find a non-drug
option to
manage the joint issues they often create, thereby improving quality of
life and
reducing the likelihood that patients would discontinue this potentially
life-saving treatment," said Dawn Hershman, M.D, M.S., senior author of
the
paper, and co-director of the breast cancer program at the Herbert
Irving
Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia
University
Medical Center, and an assistant professor of medicine
(hematology/oncology) and
epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center.
To explore the effects of acupuncture on aromatase
inhibitor-associated joint
pain, the research team randomly assigned 43 women to receive either
true
acupuncture or sham acupuncture twice a week for six weeks. Sham
acupuncture,
which was used to control for a potential placebo effect, involved
superficial
needle insertion at body points not recognized as true acupuncture
points. All
participants were receiving an aromatase inhibitor for early breast
cancer, and
all had reported musculoskeletal pain.
Among the women treated with true acupuncture, findings demonstrated
that
they experienced significant improvement in joint pain and stiffness
over the
course of the study. Pain severity declined, and overall physical
well-being
improved. Additionally, 20 percent of the patients who had reported
taking pain
relief medications reported that they no longer needed to take these
medications
following acupuncture treatment. No such improvements were reported by
the women
who were treated with the sham acupuncture.
"This study suggests that acupuncture may help women
manage the joint
pain
and stiffness that can accompany aromatase inhibitor treatment," said
Katherine
D. Crew, M.D., M.S., first author of the paper, and the Florence Irving
Assistant Professor of Medicine (hematology/oncology) and Epidemiology
at
Columbia University Medical Center and a hematological oncologist at
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. "To
our
knowledge, this is the first randomized, placebo-controlled trial
establishing
that acupuncture may be an effective method to relieve joint problems
caused by
these medications. However, results still need to be confirmed in
larger,
multicenter studies."
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