April 2006

Acupuncture may reduce vomiting after chemotherapy

Acupuncture can reduce the likelihood of vomiting 24 hours after chemotherapy, according to a new review of recent studies in which participants also took anti-vomiting medication.

Electroacupuncture, in which a small electrical current is passed through the inserted needle, was the only technique that reduced the incidence of vomiting directly after chemotherapy, however, the electroacupuncture studies were also the only studies that did not use state-of-the-art anti-vomiting drugs such as Zofran and Anzemet that have become recommended treatment for chemotherapy-related nausea.

The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

Information pooled from nine studies found that 22 percent of patients (155 of 714 patients) who received acupuncture had acute vomiting the first day after chemotherapy, compared with 33 percent (154 of 500 patients) of those who did not receive acupuncture.

Acupressure was the only technique among all acupuncture treatments reviewed to reduce the likelihood of nausea the day after chemotherapy, although it did not affect vomiting.

Electrical stimulation did not affect either nausea or vomiting. None of the acupuncture studies had enough data to determine whether any anti-nausea or anti-vomiting effects lasted beyond the first 24 hours after chemotherapy.

Since all the acupuncture studies in the Cochrane review also used anti-vomiting medication, the research doesn’t offer a clear answer as to whether acupuncture would be helpful for patients who get no relief from the drugs.

Source: Health Behavior News Service, www.hbns.org/

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