Taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy (TIPN) is a common, sometimes debilitating adverse effect of taxane chemotherapy that can reduce patients' quality of life and functional ability. This multicenter randomized controlled trial tested whether professional acupuncture or a self-administered press-tack needle intervention could reduce numbness and related symptoms in patients with TIPN. The prespecified primary objective was to compare change in numbness intensity by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) from baseline to week 13 between the acupuncture group and a wait-list control. Secondary objectives included patient-reported adverse event measures, a neurotoxicity-specific quality-of-life instrument, and analgesic medication costs.
The study was conducted as a multicenter randomized controlled trial and is reported in the abstract of an Anticancer Research article. A total of 48 participants with TIPN were randomized into three arms: professional acupuncture, press-tack needle self-care, and wait-list control. The full trial protocol, randomization details, and site list are not reported in the abstract.
Forty-eight patients with taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy were randomized to one of three groups: an acupuncture group (n=16), a press-tack needle group (n=17), and a wait-list control (n=15). The acupuncture intervention comprised 12 sessions of manual acupuncture combined with electroacupuncture at 2 Hz delivered over 13 weeks. The press-tack needle intervention involved daily self-application of a product identified as "PYONEX Zero" to specified acupoints. The wait-list control received no active intervention during the study period. Participant demographics and baseline characteristics are not detailed in the abstract.
The primary outcome measure was change in numbness intensity measured by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) from baseline to week 13. Secondary outcome measures included the patient-reported outcome common terminology criteria for adverse events (PRO-CTCAE), the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Taxane neurotoxicity subscale (FACT-Tns), and the cost of analgesic medications. Safety and adverse events were also recorded.
For the primary VAS endpoint (numbness change from baseline to week 13), the comparison between the acupuncture group and the wait-list control did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.6023). The authors note that the study was underpowered to detect differences in the primary outcome, as stated in the abstract.
Secondary analyses revealed significant differences favoring professional acupuncture on several patient-reported measures. On PRO-CTCAE items, the acupuncture group reported significantly lower interference from numbness/tingling compared with the wait-list control (p = 0.0173) and significantly less interference from pain (p = 0.0186) than control. When compared directly to the press-tack needle group, the acupuncture arm also had significantly better PRO-CTCAE scores for numbness/tingling (p = 0.0429).
On the neurotoxicity-specific quality-of-life measure, the FACT-Tns score was significantly better in the acupuncture group than in the press-tack needle group (p = 0.0333). The abstract does not provide absolute score changes, confidence intervals, or effect sizes for these measures, so magnitude and clinical relevance beyond statistical significance are not available in the source text.
Analgesic medication costs were assessed as a secondary outcome. The abstract reports that analgesic costs remained unchanged across the acupuncture, press-tack needle, and wait-list control groups during the trial period.
Adverse events were reported as few and mild across interventions. The abstract does not list specific adverse events, their frequency by arm, or any serious adverse events, so detailed safety data are not available from the source summary.
The authors conclude that, although the trial was underpowered to show a benefit on the primary VAS endpoint for numbness, secondary outcome analyses suggest that professional acupuncture may reduce the functional interference caused by TIPN and improve neurotoxicity-specific quality of life as measured by PRO-CTCAE and FACT-Tns. The abstract highlights that the study design and reported sample size limited power for the primary outcome; other limitations such as detailed methodology, blinding, longer-term outcomes, and full safety reporting are not provided in the abstract. Further adequately powered trials with complete reporting of baseline characteristics, effect sizes, and adverse event details would be needed to confirm these findings.
Note: All facts, participant numbers, intervention descriptions, endpoints, and p values above are taken from the article abstract. Additional protocol details and full dataset elements were not reported in the abstract.