Cancer Fighters Thrive is a quarterly print and online magazine bringing readers practical, innovative and inspirational information about cancer treatment and survivorship.
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SUMMER 20 15 | C A NCER FIGH T ER S T HR I V E 29 C A NCERFIGHTER S THRI V E .COM Relieve temporary pain and support a healthy mouth * These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Visit H-B12Melts.com to learn more All-natural dietary supplement with Hyaluronan & Bioactive B12 Long-lasting adhering discs that release bioactive vitamin B12 and hyaluronan Coats and soothes while dissolving* Relieves temporary pain* Supports natural healing* Works with braces and dentures* Available at: H-B12 Melts ¨ for mouth sores Patient samples, wholesale product pricing available. Call 877-672-6541 or email sales@orahealth.com Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America, the number of research studies published about acupuncture increased 96 percent between 1987 and 2007. 1 Paul Cybu- larz, LAc, Dipl OM, has seen the demand for acupuncture soar at CTCA in Philadelphia. When he started as a part-time acupuncturist there three years ago, he treated a few patients in a day. Te request for appointments escalated to the point that he was hired full-time, and now he treats up to 10 patients per day. Physicians and patients are becoming more open to acupuncture largely because they are seeing the positive results of this form of treat- ment, says Irina Aleynikova, MSOM, LAc, a licensed acupuncturist at CTCA in Zion, Illinois, who previ- ously worked as a pulmonologist and acupuncturist at the Institute of Pul- monology and Tuberculosis in the Republic of Belarus. "Integrating acupuncture into treatment leads to the best care for the patient," Aleynikova says. "Sometimes it is difcult to relieve symptoms with medication, and acupuncture can be a good addition to medication to prevent or treat side efects. It also can help a patient recover from the efects of their disease. I see a lot of patients deal- ing with nausea, vomiting, fatigue, neuropathy, hot fashes, hiccups and cravings to smoke who improve afer acupuncture." INNOVATIONS IN TREATMENT One of the frustrating challenges that Cybularz faces is the inability to treat patients when their platelet lev- els are too low—which can be a side efect of chemotherapy and/or radia- tion. Tese patients may be at higher risk of bleeding during the needling process. In September 2013 Cybularz joined a team of CTCA researchers who conducted a study that examined the charts of more than 2,000 acu- puncture visits to determine whether the hospitals' current requirement of 50,000 platelets per microliter (μL) was appropriate for acupuncture. Tey found that patients with platelet levels at and around 50,000 μL did not exhibit an increased incidence of adverse events. Now the team is plan- ning a prospective study to evaluate whether the platelet guidelines can be safely reduced even further to open acupuncture to a larger number of patients. "Te needles we use are so thin," Cybularz says. "In general I can get most of them in without patients even feeling the pinprick. In comparison to many therapies, acupuncture is very safe, but guidelines can be set pro- hibitively high due to a lack of quality evidence-based data. We could be helping more people." New research studies are also exploring the use of acupuncture for another group of patients who have historically been restricted due to safety concerns: people with lymph- edema. "Physicians typically worry that acupuncture in the afected area could increase the swelling or cause an infection, but new studies are showing that it can actually decrease swelling in patients with lymph- edema," says Misha Cohen, OMD, LAc, a research specialist in integra- tive medicine at University of Califor- nia, San Francisco. In a study published in Cancer in July 2013, researchers used acupunc- ture to treat women with breast can- cer–related lymphedema, and more than one-third of the participants experienced at least a 30 percent reduction in arm circumference. 2