Acupuncture Today – December, 2021, Vol. 22, Issue 12
BY EDITORIAL STAFF
Opioid prescribing remains an all-too-common reality in the United States and elsewhere despite increasing national and international guidelines emphasizing their dangers and promoting drug-free pain-relief, including acupuncture, as a first option.
But for patients taking opioids, acupuncture also can help, relieving one of the common side effects associated with their use – particularly in cases of cancer pain.
A new meta-analysis by C. Han and colleagues evaluating five randomized, controlled trials (656 total study participants) on acupuncture (with or without medication) in patients with opioid-induced constipation found acupuncture is highly effective, with an overall remission rate of 86.8 percent in the acupuncture groups compared to 78.9 percent remission in control groups. Symptom scores based on defecation frequency and straining, abdominal pain, defecation time and stool characteristics were also lower than control groups. Quality-of-life assessment scores also improved for patients receiving acupuncture to a greater extent than control-group patients.
Of the five studies, four utilized acupuncture delivered via electrical methods: interferential current stimulation (IFC), transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and electroacupuncture; the fifth utilized traditional acupuncture. Three of the five studies incorporated the acupuncture intervention alone, while two incorporated acupuncture and a co-intervention (oral lactulose in one and a gel pad containing a Chinese herb in the other).
“Acupuncture is an effective therapeutic strategy for the clinical management of opioid-induced constipation and enhances the effects of commonly prescribed drugs,” concluded the study authors in their paper, published in Clinical Epidemiology this year.
Source
- Han C, et al. Acupuncture relieves opioid-induced constipation in clinical cancer therapy – a meta-analysis and systematic review. Clin Epidemiol, 2021;13:907-919.