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. 2025 Feb 3;33(2):142.
doi: 10.1007/s00520-025-09190-6.

Patient-reported strategies for prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy

Daniel L Hertz  1 , Mary Tanay  2 , Cindy Tofthagen  3 , Emanuela Rossi  4 , Davide Paolo Bernasconi  4 , Katharine E Sheffield  3 , Martha Carlson  5 , Larissa Nekhlyudov  6 , Lisa Grech  7   8 , Diane Von Ah  9 , Samantha J Mayo  10   11 , Kathryn J Ruddy  12 , Alexandre Chan  13 , Paola Alberti  4   14 , Maryam B Lustberg  15
Affiliations

Patient-reported strategies for prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy

Daniel L Hertz et al. Support Care Cancer. .

Abstract

Purpose: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a debilitating toxicity of many drugs used in cancer treatment. There are numerous available strategies for preventing or treating CIPN, but few are guideline-recommended, due to limited evidence of their effectiveness. The primary objective of this survey was to understand what strategies patients used to prevent or treat CIPN, and to understand their perceptions around CIPN prevention and treatment.

Methods: The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) Neurological Complications Study Group created a cross-sectional online survey to recruit individuals who are currently or had previously received neurotoxic chemotherapy treatment and self-reported peripheral neuropathy. Descriptive statistics were reported.

Results: Most of the 447 survey participants did not use any CIPN prevention strategy (71%), though given options of any strategy the plurality preferred a prescribed medication or supplement (30%). The most common treatment strategy used was exercise (47%), with some patients trying prescription medications including non-guideline recommended gabapentin (33%) or guideline-recommended duloxetine (8%) options. Nearly half of participants (49%) used at least one non-prescribed medication for treating CIPN. Patients often followed suggestions of their medical oncology clinical team, but sometimes relied on the internet or other patients to recommend non-prescription strategies.

Conclusion: In the absence of many guideline-recommended strategies for CIPN prevention and treatment, some patients use options with minimal evidence of effectiveness. Additional research is needed to determine which strategies are effective for prevention and treatment so these can be implemented in practice to improve treatment outcomes in patients with cancer.

Keywords: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy; Prevention; Survey; Treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval: The study was approved by King's College London ethics committee (Reference: HR-20/21–25358). Consent to participate: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Competing interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest relevant to this manuscript. MBL: Consulting for Eli Lilly, Gliead, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novartis. Co-authors of this manuscript (e.g., M.B.L.) are editors of Journal of Supportive Care in Cancer.

References

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