October may be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but researchers and clinicians are hard at work year round trying to prevent and treat breast cancer, which affects up to one in eight women in their lifetime.
Encouraging new study findings suggest 12 weeks of acupuncture can help mitigate joint pain caused by aromatase inhibitors, which are used to treat hormone-sensitive breast cancer. (According to the study authors, joint pain due to aromatase inhibitor use leads to therapy nonadherence in more than 50 percent of patients taking them.)
The randomized, controlled trial at 11 U.S. sites by D.L. Hershman, et al., randomized postmenopausal women with stage 1-3 breast cancer to a true acupuncture (TA), sham acupuncture (SA) or wait-list control (WC) group. The TA and SA groups received 12 weeks of treatment (six weeks of two sessions per week, followed by six weeks of one session per week). All participants were then offered 10 additional sessions between weeks 24-52. Women were taking aromatase inhibitors for 30 days or longer at the time of study registration.
The primary outcome variable assessed: Brief Pain Inventory Worst Pain score at 52 weeks (0-10 score, with higher score indicating greater pain). A key secondary outcome: (PROMIS Pain Interference–Short Form, 6-30 scale, with higher score indicating worse symptoms).
Pain scores were 1.08 points lower in the TA vs. SA group and .099 points lower in the TA vs. WC group after 52 weeks, while 52-week pain-interference scores were statistically significantly lower in the TA vs. SA group, suggesting long-term benefits of acupuncture in early-stage breast cancer patients taking aromatase inhibitors.
Editor's Note: Published in JAMA Network Open, the full text of this study is available by clicking here.
Think of your most difficult patient – the one you try to motivate and work so hard with to develop a realistic treatment plan with achievable and measurable goals. Week after week, you see this patient struggle, sinking deeper into hopelessness as their health and quality of life continue to worsen. What if there was something else you could do that could change their outlook and their life? The solution is as simple as an automated program.
A herniated disc in the lumbar (lower) spine is the most common cause of chronic sciatica, a condition in which back pain extends down the leg. The affected nerve is the sciatic nerve, which runs from the lower back down the back of the legs and is the largest nerve in the human body. New research suggests acupuncture may be a great option for these patients.
As a practitioner, if you're wondering why your social media efforts aren't working the way you had hoped, or if you're not using social media at all, use this article to get your social media marketing strategies (back) on track.
