Treatment for cancer, whether through chemotherapy or radiotherapy, frequently cause side effects. Symptoms often appear some time after therapy are nausea, vomiting, or other discomfort. Chemoterapy can also cause xerostomia, dry mouth that caused by reduced production of saliva. Typically, xerostamia experienced in therapy for head and neck cancer.
About xerostomia, researcher Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D. of MD Anderson’s Integrative Medicine Program, said the lack of saliva is dangerous. Because, microbes will increase. This can cause bone infection, to nutritional deficiencies. Xerostomia also affects sleep, eating, and talking. Now, this dry mouth can be treated with acupuncture. Acupuncture therapy from China could minimize the occurrence of xerostomia in cancer patients. Acupuncture is done twice a week for the benefit of patients receiving chemoterapy or radiotherapy.
On observations of 86 nasopharyngeal carcinoma cancer patients who run routine radiotherapy, as many as 40 of them also do the acupuncture three times a week. Radiotherapy program usually run for seven weeks. Researchers used questionnaires based assessment of xerostomia symptom. When the patients write the score below 30, it means they feel fairly mild of dry mouth symptoms or none at all.
In the first month, patients who receive acupuncture had a score above 30 as much as 54.3 percent. Those who do not receive acupuncture have more than 86.1 percent who score over 30.
The result is different again after six months observation. The number of patients receiving acupuncture scores above 30 fell to only 24.1 percent. Meanwhile, who did not receive acupuncture also decrease to 63.6 percent. Thus, there are positive effects of acupuncture to reduce complaints of dry mouth on the perpetrators of radiotherapy.
This report quoted from Huffingtonpost, the study was conducted in cooperation with the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Fudan University and Shanghai Cancer Center.
About xerostomia, researcher Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D. of MD Anderson’s Integrative Medicine Program, said the lack of saliva is dangerous. Because, microbes will increase. This can cause bone infection, to nutritional deficiencies. Xerostomia also affects sleep, eating, and talking. Now, this dry mouth can be treated with acupuncture. Acupuncture therapy from China could minimize the occurrence of xerostomia in cancer patients. Acupuncture is done twice a week for the benefit of patients receiving chemoterapy or radiotherapy.
On observations of 86 nasopharyngeal carcinoma cancer patients who run routine radiotherapy, as many as 40 of them also do the acupuncture three times a week. Radiotherapy program usually run for seven weeks. Researchers used questionnaires based assessment of xerostomia symptom. When the patients write the score below 30, it means they feel fairly mild of dry mouth symptoms or none at all.
In the first month, patients who receive acupuncture had a score above 30 as much as 54.3 percent. Those who do not receive acupuncture have more than 86.1 percent who score over 30.
The result is different again after six months observation. The number of patients receiving acupuncture scores above 30 fell to only 24.1 percent. Meanwhile, who did not receive acupuncture also decrease to 63.6 percent. Thus, there are positive effects of acupuncture to reduce complaints of dry mouth on the perpetrators of radiotherapy.
This report quoted from Huffingtonpost, the study was conducted in cooperation with the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Fudan University and Shanghai Cancer Center.
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