Efficacy of acupuncture for a cough-related symptom cluster in patients with lung cancer: A randomized controlled trial

Purpose

This study was designed to evaluate the effect of acupuncture on cough, expectoration, and shortness of breath in lung cancer patients.

Methods

Between December 2021 and June 2022, a total of 130 lung cancer patients were recruited, and they were split into control and intervention groups at random. Routine nursing was provided to the control group, whereas routine nursing with acupuncture using LU7 (Lie Que), LU9 (Tai Yuan), BL13 (Fei Shu), and BL20 (Pi Shu) was administered to the intervention group for 7 days. The severity of cough, expectoration, and shortness of breath was assessed 1 day before and after the interventions using the lung cancer-specific module of the MDASI. A two-way ANOVA was performed for group comparisons.

Results

Compared with the control group, the symptoms of cough in the intervention group were significantly improved (F = 5.095, MD = −0.32, 95% CI, −0.59 to 0.04, P = 0.025), while expectoration (F = 0.626, MD = −0.11, 95% CI, −0.38 to 0.16, P = 0.430) and shortness of breath (F = 0.165, MD = −0.05, 95% CI, −0.27 to 0.18, P = 0.685) had no significant change. Cough also identified an obvious interaction effect (P = 0.014), and the post-intervention simple main effect test demonstrated a tangible difference between the two groups (MD = −0.66, 95% CI, −0.99 to 0.33, P < 0.001) post-intervention.

Conclusions

Acupuncture using LU7, LU9, BL13, and BL20 can relieve the cough of lung cancer patients, but not relieve expectoration and shortness of breath.