CANCER PAIN
Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment
A frequently asked question by patients undergoing cancer treatment is, “Can acupuncture help me?”
The issue then becomes: is there a place for acupuncture in the vast field of cancer with its diverse treatment modalities?
‘Vast’ since cancer is not one disease but over 300 different malignancies, each with its own unique histology, patho-physiology, and clinical behavior.
’Diverse’ because of the different chemotherapeutic classes of agents, hormonal agents, types of High-energy particle beam generators, and various delivery systems for radiation treatment.
‘Diverse’ also because it encompasses various types of surgical procedures, nutritional support, and the body-mind holistic approach.
Timely diagnosis and early surgery offer the most favorable possibility of a cure for solid tumors.
The germinal cancers and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, along with some hematologic malignancies such as childhood leukemia, are the few exceptions.
These are treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow or stem cell transplantation singly or in combination.
Some of the latter are the most predictably curable malignancies with or without surgery.
If the diagnosis is late, surgery unsuccessful, or should the tumor recur after surgery, then the chance of a cure, with rare exceptions, is considered lost.
This class of patients, along with those not amenable to surgical approaches, are treated palliatively. Palliative therapies also consist of chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and radiation therapy and/or palliative surgery.
