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Acupuncture (PDQ®)     
Last Modified: 10/02/2009
Health Professional Version
Changes to This Summary (10/02/2009)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

General Information 1

Added Lee et al. as reference 55 2.

Added text 2 to state that there is controversy about the most appropriate control for acupuncture, which also limits the interpretability of the results of clinical trials (cited Moffet as reference 60).

Human/Clinical Studies 3

Added text 4 to state that similar findings were reported in a study comparing electroacupuncture to the control in patients receiving chemotherapy for breast, colorectal cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (cited Ye et al. as reference 8).

Added text 5 to Table 2 about a nonconsecutive case series of T-cell levels and natural killer cell activity in patients treated with chemotherapy.

Added text 6 about a pilot study of acupuncture for joint symptoms related to adjuvant aromatase inhibitor therapy; it reduced all related joint symptoms and improved functional ability; however, there was no control or blinding with this study (cited Crew et al. as reference 45).

Added Meidell et al. as reference 49 7.

Added text 8 to Table 5 about a pilot study of musculoskeletal pain related to adjuvant aromatase inhibitor therapy.

Adverse Effects 9

Added text 10 to state that acupuncture in children has not been studied extensively. However, adverse effects appear to be rare and limited to the same effects as observed in adults (cited Jindal et al. as reference 13).



Table of Links

1http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/4.cdr
#Section_4
2http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/20.cd
r#Section_20
3http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/35.cd
r#Section_35
4http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/44.cd
r#Section_44
5http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/46.cd
r#Section_46
6http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/67.cd
r#Section_67
7http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/69.cd
r#Section_69
8http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/70.cd
r#Section_70
9http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/71.cd
r#Section_71
10http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/73.cd
r#Section_73