Alexandre Chan, President and Board Member of The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC), shared on LinkedIn:
“Advancing evidence-based symptom management for AYAs living with cancer with integrative modalities.
Around the world, more adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are surviving cancer, often with decades of life ahead of them. Many continue to experience cognitive problems, fatigue, insomnia and psychological distress long after treatment ends. These symptoms rarely occur alone. They tend to cluster together. These symptoms rarely show up alone. They cluster together.
Integrative therapies are often offered for these symptoms, but the evidence in AYAs is thin. Most studies have looked at exercise, massage or mindfulness, and very few rigorous randomized trials have targeted the neuropsychiatric symptom cluster in this population.
That’s the gap we set out to address. Our randomized pilot trial is now out in Pediatric, Adolescent & Young Adult Cancer, a new American Cancer Society journal.
Design: A randomized trial in which both patients and assessors were blinded. 34 AYA survivors (ages 16–39; mean age ~21; 59% Hispanic/Latino) received 10 weekly sessions of electroacupuncture at either neuropsychiatric-specific acupoints or an active-control set of acupoints.
What we saw:
- About half of participants reported symptom improvement by mid-treatment, and 80–92% did by 4 weeks after treatment, in both arms.
- The neuropsychiatric-specific arm showed greater gains in attention (d = 1.48).
- Biomarker changes, including BDNF, IL-10 and RANTES, tracked with symptom changes. This points to possible neuroimmune mechanisms.
- All adverse events were grade ≤2, and satisfaction was high.
What we learned: The biggest benefit came in participants who completed every session. Work–life balance and transportation were the main reasons people dropped out. For AYAs, how we deliver care matters as much as what we deliver.
This is a pilot, so the findings generate hypotheses rather than prove efficacy. They make the case for a larger, definitive trial that is designed around how young adults actually want to be treated.
Thank you to our participants and families, to our partners at CHOC Children’s and the UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, and to the California Breast Cancer Research Program and the UCI Anti-Cancer Challenge for funding.”
Title: Neuropsychiatric symptom improvement and biomarker changes with electroacupuncture in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors: A randomized pilot trial
Authors: Alexandre Chan, Matthew Heshmatipour, Ding Quan Ng, Julia Trudeau, Munjal M. Acharya, Anshu Agrawal, Shaista Malik, Lifang Xie, Yae Chang, Keri Zabokrtsky, Christine Yun, Carol Lin, Sonia Morales, Jamie Frediani, Lilibeth Torno
You can also read:
Cancer Survivorship, Holistic Healing and Patient Advocacy with Rohini Singh Sisodia
