Acupuncture to Improve Quality of Life in Patients with Head and Neck Cancer: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Objective: We aimed to investigate the effects of traditional acupuncture combined with auricular acupressure on quality of life in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma undergoing radiotherapy. Study Design: This is a two-arm, parallel, randomized clinical trial with blinded outcome assessment. The study population comprised 107 patients (55 without intervention and 52 with intervention). Data were collected at Dilson Godinho Hospital in Brazil from March 2017 to June 2018, and all patients provided informed consent and were registered under the UTN U1111-1204-8410/RBR-10v5gcdk. Patients in the intervention group received traditional and auricular acupressure in weekly sessions during their radiotherapy treatment, and patients in the control group received no acupuncture. In addition, quality-of-life assessment data were collected using the WHOQOL-BREF instrument. Results: Analysis of the scores obtained in the WHOQOL-BREF before and after radiotherapy demonstrated that the use of traditional and auricular acupressure had a positive impact on physical, psychological, social, environmental, and overall quality of life. Conclusions: Our findings suggest benefits and provide a context for patients and physicians to decide if acupuncture is a desirable treatment option. However, further studies are required to understand the therapy's effectiveness better.