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. 2017 Jul;9(7):1959-1966.
doi: 10.21037/jtd.2017.06.05.

Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) relieved cancer-related fatigue in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients after chemotherapy

Lili Hou  1 , Caicun Zhou  2 , Yifan Wu  1 , Ying Yu  1 , Yinqing Hu  1
Affiliations

Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) relieved cancer-related fatigue in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients after chemotherapy

Lili Hou et al. J Thorac Dis. 2017 Jul.

Abstract

Background: To explore the effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) approach on cancer-related fatigue (CRF) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) chemotherapy patients.

Methods: A total of 162 participants who treated with gemcitabine combined with platinum-based drugs (GP chemotherapy) were randomly assigned to three groups: Control (Group A, n=56), Sham TEAS (Group B, n=49), and TEAS (Group C, n=57). The following acupoints were used in this study: Qihai (CV6), Keshu (UB17), and Zusanli (ST36). The Revised Piper Fatigue Scale (RPFS) were used to measure CRF on the day before chemotherapy (P1), days 8 (P2) and 28 (P3) separately. The Differences among three groups were analyzed.

Results: At the 28th day, the outcomes of the fatigue scores for Group C, Group B and Group A were 2.06±0.90, 2.80±1.34, 3.00±1.29 respectively. There were significantly different among three groups (F=9.784, P<0.01). At the 28th day, the outcomes of the affective fatigue (F=8.161, P<0.01), sensory fatigue (F=3.06, P=0.05) and cognitive fatigue (F=8.06, P<0.01) for Group C, Group B and Group A were significantly different among three groups.

Conclusions: Chemotherapy may increase the fatigue from P1 to P2 and P3 in NSCLC patients. And TEAS could help to relived CRF, especially at P3.

Keywords: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF); lung cancer; transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS).

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of allocation and dropouts of participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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