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Acupuncture for Symptom Management in Cancer Care: an Update

  • Integrative Care (C Lammersfeld, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

In a previous systematic review of the worldwide literature of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving needle insertion into acupuncture points for symptom management in cancer patients, we identified only one high-quality RCT that was deemed to have a low risk of bias. Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane (all databases), Scopus, and PubMed were searched from inception through December 2011 with no language limits applied. A total of 41 RCTs met all inclusion criteria and were rated. In the current review, we examined 18 trials published since our last report. The purpose of this update was to emphasize important recent findings and discuss how concerns such as blinding, separating non-specific placebo effects from specific needling effects, determining biologic mechanisms and dosing parameters, evaluating determinants of response such as expectation, controlling for sources of bias, and the lack of standardization in treatment and study methods may affect the interpretation of study results.

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Conflict of Interest

M. Kay Garcia, Jennifer McQuade, Richard Lee, Robin Haddad, Michael Spano, and Lorenzo Cohen declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Oncology, Integrative Medicine Program, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Unit 0462, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    M. Kay Garcia, Jennifer McQuade, Richard Lee, Robin Haddad, Michael Spano & Lorenzo Cohen

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  1. M. Kay Garcia
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  2. Jennifer McQuade
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  4. Robin Haddad
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Correspondence to M. Kay Garcia.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Integrative Care

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Garcia, M.K., McQuade, J., Lee, R. et al. Acupuncture for Symptom Management in Cancer Care: an Update. Curr Oncol Rep 16, 418 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-014-0418-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-014-0418-9

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