Acupuncture for dysphagia after chemoradiation therapy in head and neck cancer: a case series report
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Weidong Lu1, Marshall R Posner, Peter Wayne
1Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, 44 Binney Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. weidong_lu@dfci.harvard.edu
Background:
Dysphagia is a common side effect following chemoradiation therapy (CRT) in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC).
Methods:
In this retrospective case series, 10 patients with HNC were treated with acupuncture for radiation-induced dysphagia and xerostomia. All patients were diagnosed with stage III/IV squamous cell carcinoma. In all, 7 of 10 patients were percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube dependent when they began acupuncture. Manual acupuncture and electroacupuncture were used once a week.
Results:
A total of 9 of 10 patients reported various degrees of subjective improvement in swallowing functions, xerostomia, pain, and fatigue levels. Overall, 6 (86%) of 7 PEG tube-dependent patients had their feeding tubes removed after acupuncture, with a median duration of 114 days (range 49 to 368 days) post CRT. One typical case is described in detail.
Conclusions:
A relatively short PEG tube duration and reduced symptom severity following CRT were observed in these patients. Formal clinical trials are required to determine the causality of the observations.
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