Is Acupuncture Able to Reduce Nausea and Vomiting in the Terminal Ill Patient

University of Aarhus

Status: Completed

Conditions: Terminal Illness

Treatments: Other: Acupuncture

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04378998

1-10-72-291-14

Details and patient eligibility

About

A comparative effectiveness research design was used. The sample size was calculated to 136 patients, who were randomized to an intervention group and a control group respectively. The patients were terminal ill patients enrolled to three in-bed hospices in Denmark and nausea and vomiting were measured using EORTC QlQ-c15-PAL (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Quality of Life Questionaire, core 15, Palliation)

Full description

The terminal ill patient is suffering from many different symptoms. In total 70% are suffering from nausea and vomiting due to the wide spread of cancer or due to side effects of treatment. Often the antiemetic's are not able to reduce symptoms to a level that enable the patient to experience quality in life in the last days of his life. The investigators had some experience with acupuncture as a complementary therapy but the investigators wanted more systematically to investigate if acupuncture is able to reduce the terminal ill patient´s nausea and vomiting. Literature show that acupuncture is able to reduce nausea and vomiting in patients receiving chemotherapy, but there is no literature that support the ability of acupuncture to reduce nausea and vomiting in the terminal ill patient.

The purpose of this study was to generate evidence based knowledge close to practice regarding the effect of acupuncture in reducing nausea and vomiting in the terminal ill patient.

Participants:

Terminal ill patients suffering from nausea and/or vomiting

Interventions:

The intervention group received usual care plus acupuncture for three days. The acupuncture spots: Pericardium-6, Stomach-36, Liver-3 and Yin Tang were used. The control group received usual care.

Enrollment: 136 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Able to participate due to cognitive ability
• Nausea
• Admitted to in-bed hospice

Exclusion criteria

• Not able to participate due to cognitive impairment
• Lymphedema in the area of acupuncture site

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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136 participants in 2 patient groups

Acupuncture

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention group received usual care plus acupuncture for three days. The acupuncture spots: Pericardium-6, Stomach-36, Liver-3 and Ying Tang were used.

Treatment:

Other: Acupuncture

Usual care

No Intervention group