Acupuncture studied for hot flashes, cancer woes

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A Detroit team is studying acupuncture as a treatment for hot flashes caused by breast cancer treatments. It's a therapy that holds hope for other cancer-related problems.

Chemotherapy medicines and the drug tamoxifen, taken by thousands of women to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer, cause hot flashes, often debilitating ones, in nearly two-thirds of patients, says Dr. Eleanor Walker, a radiation oncologist at Detroit's Henry Ford Health System and principal investigator of the study.

"Patients are tired of taking drugs with side effects," Walker says, referring to herbal supplements, anti depressants and other medicines women take to reduce hot flashes.

A two-year study, started in October, hopes to build on a growing body of research that may help make acupuncture an option for treating other cancer-related problems.

"The evidence is fairly strong for a number of indications, especially pain," caused by cancer, "but we need more randomized trials," says Barrie Cassileth, Ph.D., chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.

Sloan-Kettering also is studying the use of acupuncture to relieve hot flashes in breast cancer patients and contrasting that approach with a fake type of acupuncture being used in a comparison group. "It seems to be pretty effective," Cassileth says. Over the last few years, the center has found acupuncture useful for cancer-related problems such as chronic fatigue, dry mouth and post-surgical pain, Cassileth says.

Acupuncture also could help men who develop hot flashes as a result of prostate cancer drugs, a class of medicines known as androgen antagonists.

The Ford study, funded by a $250,000 grant from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, will assign 140 patients to receive either acupuncture or Effexor, one of several anti depressants found effective in reducing hot flashes, Walker says.

To be eligible, women must currently be taking tamoxifen or have completed chemotherapy and have at least 14 hot flashes a week. Women receive acupuncture twice a week for two weeks, then once a week for eight weeks.

Walker is collaborating on the study with Beth Kohn, an acupuncturist and alternate medicine practitioner at Ford's Center for Integrative Medicine in Novi. "We're trying to learn from each other," Walker says.

Marie Lockhart , a 44-year-old hospital accountant and mother of two from Southfield, Mich., found relief from her hot flashes by getting acupuncture through the study. She had endured eight to 12 hot flashes a day while taking tamoxifen. "I was sweating all day," she says.

A routine mammogram led to her July 2003 diagnosis with an early, treatable tumor. She's midway through a five-year course of tamoxifen, the standard regimen of the drug for breast cancer patients.

Kohn inserts hair-thin needles in what are called primary points of the body, pathways to energy and the inner spirit, as Eastern medicine views them.

"Acupuncture may be considered a new treatment in this culture, but it's actually a 4,000-year-old medicine," Kohn says. Acupuncture is effective in treating other problems common in women, including fibromyalgia, which causes muscle aches and body pain, menstrual problems, fertility problems, digestive disorders and smoking cessation difficulties. Kohn says she also has achieved good results relieving hot flashes related to menopause.

The treatments take about 15 minutes. They are free through the study, but cost $100 a session otherwise.

The tiny needles, inserted so gently that they don't evoke even a wince or cry from Lockhart, include several points on the hand, wrist, back, neck, shoulders, ankle, calf, abdomen and head.

"It doesn't hurt at all," Lockhart says as she reclines on her side and relaxes as if she is getting a massage. "You really can't even feel it ."

Lockhart likes the head point the most. Kohn says that pressure point "is for mental clarity."

After one of her treatments ended last year, Lockhart returned to her job at Mt. Clemens General Hospital. "I go to work happy, calm, focused," Lockhart says, pausing between each word as if she is taking deep breaths. No signs of stress here.

from bradenton.com