Acupuncture in hematologic malignancies and hematopoietic cell transplantation

Acupuncture is an integrative medicine modality that has been used historically and studied recently for man-aging various symptoms and diseases. Patients with hematological malignancies often experience a high symptom burden including pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and insomnia. Pharmacological interventions are the mainstay of managing these symptoms, although they may not provide adequate control or are not well tolerated due to side effects. There have been many randomized controlled trials of acupuncture on reduction of these symptoms. In this review, we will summarize the current evidence on the effect of acupuncture on the man-agement of common symptoms experienced by patients with hematological malignancies and the current un-derstanding of acupuncture's mechanism of action. The evidence is the strongest for reducing pain and nausea vomiting, less strong for symptoms such as peripheral neuropathy, fatigue, constipation, insomnia, night sweat, and pruritus.

Automated summary

Acupuncture is an integrative medicine modality that has been widely used for managing various symptoms and diseases. There is evidence supporting the effectiveness of acupuncture in reducing common symptoms experienced by patients with hematological malignancies.