Acupuncture for Taxane-induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy (TIPN) is a common side effect of chemotherapy that significantly impacts patients' quality of life. This study evaluated the efficacy of professional acupuncture and self-care using press-tack needles for TIPN.

In this multicenter randomized controlled trial, 48 patients with TIPN were randomized into three groups: acupuncture (n=16), press-tack needle (n=17), and wait-list control (n=15). The acupuncture group received 12 sessions of manual and electroacupuncture (2 Hz) over 13 weeks. The press-tack needle group applied "PYONEX Zero" to specific acupoints daily. The primary outcome was the change in the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score for numbness from baseline to week 13. Secondary outcomes included patient-reported outcome common terminology criteria for adverse events (PRO-CTCAE), the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Taxane neurotoxicity subscale (FACT-Tns), and analgesic medication costs.

No statistically significant difference was observed in the primary VAS endpoint between the acupuncture and control groups (p=0.6023). However, PRO-CTCAE scores revealed that the acupuncture group experienced significantly lower interference from numbness/tingling (p=0.0173) and pain (p=0.0186) than the waiting-list control. For numbness/tingling, the acupuncture group also significantly outperformed the press-tack needle group (p=0.0429). Additionally, the acupuncture group demonstrated significantly better FACT-Tns scores compared to the press-tack needle group (p=0.0333). Analgesic costs remained unchanged across all groups. Adverse events were few and mild.

Although underpowered to detect differences in the primary outcome, secondary analyses suggest that professional acupuncture may mitigate the functional interference of TIPN and improve neurotoxicity-specific quality of life.