Acupuncture intervention could significantly improve the treatment outcomes for breast cancer-related lymphedema, regardless of the control treatments used.

2019 Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research Acupuncture therapy for breast cancer‐related lymphedema: A systematic review and meta‐analysis Hou W, Pei L, Song Y, Wu J, Geng H, Chen L, et al.

Systematic Review Breast Cancer Cancer Treatment Support Lymphoedema

The methodology of this study began with a detailed survey of public databases, including China Academic Journals Full-text Database, Database of Chinese Sci-Tech Journal, Wanfang, PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library, and focused on looking for randomized controlled trials related to the use of acupuncture for the treatment of breast cancer-related lymphedema. Clinical trials on the treatment of this condition, where acupuncture was used in conjunction with drugs or functional exercise, were singled out for inclusion in the study. The assessment of any potential risk of bias and quality was performed by two investigators using Cochrane Handbook standard, accompanied by meta-analysis with the help of Revman software.

As for the discussion of the results, the study comprised 13 different studies, enrolling a total of 747 patients. Analysis of these enrolled studies revealed that the use of acupuncture intervention showed an increase in success rate in treating breast cancer-related lymphedema. This was evidenced by an observed improvement in the subjective pain, discomfort, and upper limb swelling in patients who received acupuncture therapy, irrespective of the control intervention used. However, it was mentioned that the majority of the studies used in the assessment contained inconsistent efficacy indicators.

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