Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?

Bone pain is the most common type of pain in cancer. Bony metastases are common in advanced cancers, particularly in multiple myeloma, breast, prostate or lung cancer. Current pain-relieving strategies include the use of opioid-based analgesia, bisphosphonates and radiotherapy. Although patients exp...

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Main Authors: Paley, Carole A., Bennett, Michael I., Johnson, Mark I.
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136818/
id pubmed-3136818
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-31368182011-07-28 Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain? Paley, Carole A. Bennett, Michael I. Johnson, Mark I. Original Article Bone pain is the most common type of pain in cancer. Bony metastases are common in advanced cancers, particularly in multiple myeloma, breast, prostate or lung cancer. Current pain-relieving strategies include the use of opioid-based analgesia, bisphosphonates and radiotherapy. Although patients experience some pain relief, these interventions may produce unacceptable side-effects which inevitably affect the quality of life. Acupuncture may represent a potentially valuable adjunct to existing strategies for pain relief and it is known to be relatively free of harmful side-effects. Although acupuncture is used in palliative care settings for all types of cancer pain the evidence-base is sparse and inconclusive and there is very little evidence to show its effectiveness in relieving cancer-induced bone pain (CIBP). The aim of this critical review is to consider the known physiological effects of acupuncture and discuss these in the context of the pathophysiology of malignant bone pain. The aim of future research should be to produce an effective protocol for treating CIBP with acupuncture based on a sound, evidence-based rationale. The physiological mechanisms presented in this review suggest that this is a realistic objective. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011 2011-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3136818/ /pubmed/21799687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecam/neq020 Text en Copyright © 2011 Carole A. Paley et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Paley, Carole A.
Bennett, Michael I.
Johnson, Mark I.
spellingShingle Paley, Carole A.
Bennett, Michael I.
Johnson, Mark I.
Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
author_facet Paley, Carole A.
Bennett, Michael I.
Johnson, Mark I.
author_sort Paley, Carole A.
title Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
title_short Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
title_full Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
title_fullStr Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
title_full_unstemmed Acupuncture for Cancer-Induced Bone Pain?
title_sort acupuncture for cancer-induced bone pain?
description Bone pain is the most common type of pain in cancer. Bony metastases are common in advanced cancers, particularly in multiple myeloma, breast, prostate or lung cancer. Current pain-relieving strategies include the use of opioid-based analgesia, bisphosphonates and radiotherapy. Although patients experience some pain relief, these interventions may produce unacceptable side-effects which inevitably affect the quality of life. Acupuncture may represent a potentially valuable adjunct to existing strategies for pain relief and it is known to be relatively free of harmful side-effects. Although acupuncture is used in palliative care settings for all types of cancer pain the evidence-base is sparse and inconclusive and there is very little evidence to show its effectiveness in relieving cancer-induced bone pain (CIBP). The aim of this critical review is to consider the known physiological effects of acupuncture and discuss these in the context of the pathophysiology of malignant bone pain. The aim of future research should be to produce an effective protocol for treating CIBP with acupuncture based on a sound, evidence-based rationale. The physiological mechanisms presented in this review suggest that this is a realistic objective.
publisher Hindawi Publishing Corporation
publishDate 2011
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136818/
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