Breast Cancer Awareness – 2020.10
Updated: 2 days ago
Archive note: This article was originally published in October 2020 and includes statistics attributed to IARC GLOBOCAN 2008.
Clinical context: Acupuncture may be considered as supportive care for selected symptoms alongside oncology care. It does not treat or cure cancer. Treatment and herbal-product decisions should be coordinated with the oncology team.
Breast Cancer Awareness: 2020 Archive
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There are about 1.38 million new cases and 458 000 deaths from breast cancer each year (IARC Globocan, 2008). Breast cancer is by far the most common cancer in women worldwide, both in the developed and developing countries.
Supportive Care Topics in This Archive
Acupuncture can help with several issues that may occur during or after their chemotherapy sessions.
Practitioners of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine don’t purport to cure cancer, but instead, use treatment modalities to help alleviate symptoms and complement a patient’s overall cancer treatment plan. For example, acupuncture and Oriental medicine treatment can help with pain and other symptoms or secondary issues, including problems with mood, appetite, sleep, energy, and more.
Joint pain and stiffness are common side effects of aromatase inhibitor therapy, in which the synthesis of estrogen is blocked. The therapy, which is a common and effective treatment for early-stage, hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer in post-menopausal women, has been shown in previous research to cause some joint pain and stiffness in half of women being treated. Among the women treated with true acupuncture, findings demonstrated that they experienced significant improvement in joint pain and stiffness over the course of the study. Pain severity declined, and overall physical well-being improved. No such improvements were reported by the women who were treated with the sham acupuncture.
For many women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, the use of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs -- either alone or with chemotherapy -- may help guard bone marrow and immune system, while improving overall quality of life. Researchers found that Chinese medicinal herb treatments showed some evidence of reducing side effects, and caused no harm to patients who were treated with them.
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This article is educational. Care is individualized, and acupuncture does not replace appropriate medical evaluation or treatment.
Balance Art Acupuncture is located in Vienna, Virginia, and welcomes patients from Reston, Tysons Corner, McLean, Fairfax, Falls Church, Arlington, Great Falls and Chantilly in Northern Virginia, as well as Potomac and Bethesda in Maryland, Washington, DC, and surrounding communities.
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