The Roles of Battlefield Acupuncture and Electroacupuncture in a Patient with Cancer-Related Pain

Abstract

Background: Pain is one of the most-frightening complications of cancer and disrupts quality of life. Cancerrelated pain can be caused by primary cancer itself, metastases that occur, and interventions to treat cancer. Almost all cancer-related pain is pain with moderate-to-severe intensity. Thus, cancer-related pain management often involves administration of opioid analgesics. However, administration of opioid analgesics can cause side-effects that cause new problems for these patients. Several studies have shown that acupuncture can reduce cancer-related pain and data show that acupuncture therapy is safe and can provide clinically meaningful improvements when used in conjunction with standard therapy. Case: A 72-year-old female patient had pain throughout her body since 1 month prior to before being admitted to the hospital. She was unable to sleep at night often cried because she was unable to stand the pain. This was reduced by morphine 3 • /day. Because of the drug's side-effects, she slept more often during the day, could not sleep at night, and was constipated. She also had breakthrough pain, on an average of 2-3 • /day. She had a history of malignancy in the pleura, liver, lungs, and cervix. There was an increase in some tumor markers. Her baseline numeric rating scale (NRS) assessment was 4 with an oral morphine slow-release tablet 3 • 15 mg/day. Acupuncture therapy was performed at Battlefield Acupuncture points of the right ear and body acupuncture points (LI 4, LI 11, ST 36, SP 6, and LR 3) was treated with 3-Hz continuous-wave electroacupuncture for 30 minutes at each session. During this therapy, there were reductions in pain (baseline NRS 4 became 2), need for morphine, morphine side-effects, and frequency of breakthrough pain. There were no significant side-effects due to acupuncture. Conclusions: Acupuncture is an effective and safe therapeutic option for reducing cancer pain with minimal side-effects. Acupuncture can enable a reduced need for narcotic analgesics.

Mechanism and application of acupuncture and electro‐acupuncture associated with cancer therapy

“…AC has been integrated into standard medical practice in certain countries, yielding favorable outcomes 138 . Recent studies have shown that AC is an effective and reliable treatment for cancer pain, 26–28 with fewer adverse effects 29 and the ability to reduce the amount of narcotic analgesics needed 30–32,132,133 . One case report suggested that AC significantly improved neuropathic pain caused by bone metastases in patients with advanced cancer 33 .…”

The Therapeutic Effects of Acupuncture and Electroacupuncture on Cancer-related Symptoms and Side-Effects

“…A case report suggested that acupuncture may greatly improve the neuropathic pain induced by bone metastasis in patients with advanced cancer 49 . A recent case report study demonstrated that acupuncture is an effective and safe therapeutic option for reducing cancer pain with minimal side-effects and lowering the need for narcotic analgesics 50 . A randomized controlled clinical trial demonstrated that EA at Jiaji (Ex-B2) from T8 to T12 bilaterally could significantly relieve pancreatic cancer pain 51 .…”