Acupuncture Continuing Education

Acupuncture Social for Chemotherapy Ovarian Cancer

Acupuncture helps patients receiving chemotherapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer. A massive study of over 20,000 patients was conducted by top researchers from the Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston), The New England School of Acupuncture (Newton) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The researchers discovered that social function scores significantly improved in the acupuncture group.

Acupuncture helps cancer patients. Acupuncture for Chemo The investigation was initially presented to The Society for Integrative Oncology's 6th International Conference in New York City. One important feature of the study is the large sample size. Other important features of the study were that it was a randomized, sham-controlled trial. The acupuncture results were tabulated against a control group that received sham, simulated, acupuncture. The true acupuncture group social functions scores were significantly better than the sham group thereby ruling out the placebo effect.

Reference:
Weidong Lu, Ursula A. Matulonis, Julie E. Dunn, Hang Lee, Anne Doherty-Gilman, Elizabeth Dean-Clower, Annekathryn Goodman, Roger B. Davis, Julie Buring, Peter Wayne, David S. Rosenthal, and Richard T. Penson. Medical Acupuncture. -Not available-, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/acu.2012.0904.

Author Information:
1 Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.
2 The New England School of Acupuncture, Newton, MA.
3 Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.
4 Biostatistics Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.
5 Department of Gynecologic Oncology & Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.
6 Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.