ASCO24 Updates: Dr. Iris Zhi on Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine for Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting is one of the largest and most prestigious conferences in the field of oncology. This year, the meeting took place from May 31 to June 4 in Chicago, Illinois. The event gathers oncologists, researchers, and healthcare professionals from around the world to discuss the latest advancements in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. Keynote sessions, research presentations, and panel discussions are typically part of the agenda, providing attendees with valuable insights into emerging trends and innovations in oncology.

This year, OncoDaily was at ASCO 2024 for the first time covering the meeting on-site. We had the pleasure of interviewing researchers who summarized the highlights of their work.

In this video, Dr. Iris Zhi, a breast medical oncologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, shared insights on ‘Acupuncture for preventing progression of taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy (ATP): A phase II randomized, placebo-controlled trial.‘

Good morning, my name is Dr. Iris Z. I am a breast medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Today, I’m sharing with you my poster presented on 2024 ASCO annual conference of a clinical trial in progress to understand the benefit of acupuncture to alleviating and slow down the progression of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. For patients with early-stage breast cancer, taxin-based chemotherapy remains the main adjuvant chemotherapy.

However, chemotherapy-related peripheral neuropathy remains a major challenging for those group of patients. So currently, there is no proven prevention strategy for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. When patients developed CIPN, the common strategy is to decrease the chemotherapy dose or permanently discontinuation due to the symptoms from neuropathy.

In this study, we are looking at offering patients with real acupuncture versus sham acupuncture to understand whether acupuncture can slow down the progression of neuropathy. In our previous study, we have demonstrated that acupuncture might slow down the progression of peripheral neuropathy in a single-arm phase two study. In my current study, we wanted to formally compare real acupuncture versus sham acupuncture.

The trial is randomized controlled, placebo-controlled phase two study. Currently, we are two-third to our accrual, and I’m looking forward to present data of this trial in the coming years. Of note, we also have a couple other clinical trials being presented in this meeting, including utilizing acupuncture and other integrated medicine strategies, such yoga, to alleviating the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy in patients with chronic neuropathy after treated with chemotherapy.

More videos and content from ASCO 2024 on OncoDaily.