Acupuncture for Hot Flashes in
Cancer Patients
Hot flashes (HFs) are a common side
effect of cancer treatment. The purpose of this systematic review was to
evaluate evidence related to the use of acupuncture for HFs in cancer patients.
EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane (all databases), PubMed, the Cumulative Index to
Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Scopus were searched from their
inception through December 2014. Included studies had to be randomized
controlled trials with a usual-care and/or placebo comparison group that
investigated acupuncture to treat HFs in cancer patients. No language limits
were applied. The risk of bias (ROB) was rated as low, high, or unclear
according to Cochrane criteria. Both within-group and between-group changes
were evaluated. Four hundred two items were identified, and 192 duplicates were
omitted; this left 210 publications to be screened. Eight studies met the
inclusion criteria, and all involved women with breast cancer. All studies
showed significant within-group improvement from the baseline for true acupuncture
(TA). One study showed significant improvement in favor of TA over sham acupuncture
(SA; P < .001), 1 study found in favor of TA over SA for nighttime HFs only
(P = .03), and 1 study found in favor of TA over SA or untreated controls (P
< .01 and P < .001, respectively). Between-group (TA vs SA) effect size
(ES) estimates for daytime and nighttime HFs were calculated (ES range,
0.04-0.9) whenever possible. No studies were rated with a low ROB. In
conclusion, the current level of evidence is insufficient to either support or
refute the benefits of acupuncture for the management of HFs in cancer
patients. Future studies should provide within-group and between-group ES
estimates in addition to P values.
No comments:
Post a Comment