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. 2014:2014:217397.
doi: 10.1155/2014/217397. Epub 2014 Jul 24.

Effects of acupuncture on leucopenia, neutropenia, NK, and B cells in cancer patients: a randomized pilot study

Irene Pais  1 , Nuno Correia  2 , Isabel Pimentel  3 , Maria José Teles  4 , Esmeralda Neves  5 , Júlia Vasconcelos  5 , Judite Guimarães  5 , Nancy Azevedo  5 , António Moreira Pinto  6 , Jorge Machado  7 , Thomas Efferth  8 , Henry J Greten  9
Affiliations

Effects of acupuncture on leucopenia, neutropenia, NK, and B cells in cancer patients: a randomized pilot study

Irene Pais et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2014.

Abstract

Chemotherapy is one of most significant therapeutic approaches to cancer. Immune system functional state is considered a major prognostic and predictive impact on the success of chemotherapy and it has an important role on patients' psychoemotional state and quality of life. In Chinese medicine, chemotherapy is understood as "toxic cold" that may induce a progressive hypofunctional state of immune system, thus compromising the fast recovery of immunity during chemotherapy. In this study, we performed a standardized acupuncture and moxibustion protocol to enhance immunity in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and to assess if the improvement of immunity status correlates with a better psychoemotional state and quality of life.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
CONSORT flow of participants through the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Study flow chart. Black solid dots: time points of outcome measurements. Open circle: first chemotherapy day. Black diamonds: the primary endpoints of the study. Dashed lines: the expected changes, during chemotherapy, of white blood cells (WBC) and absolute neutrophil counts (ANC). Short, blue down arrows: acupuncture treatments. CBC, complete blood counts; NK, NK cells and subsets.
Figure 3
Figure 3
WBC and ANC. Comparison between groups.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Total lymphocytes and T and B cells. Comparison between groups.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Total NK cells counts. Comparison between groups.
Figure 6
Figure 6
HADS scores. Differences among groups, at beginning (T 0) and at the end (T 3) of the study.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Symptoms related to QOL questionnaires. Differences among groups at the beginning (T 0) and at the end (T 3) of the study. CT, control group; AcuMoxa, experimental group.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Chemotherapy side effects. Intragroup analyses show significant decrease of chemotherapy side effects among AcuMoxa group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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