Acupuncture Intervention for AYA With Cancer

Acupuncture is an integrative medicine (IM) with a growing evidence base that is often incorporated into comprehensive pain management in adult oncology. However, it is under-utilized and under-researched in pediatric oncology, especially with adolescents and young adults (AYA). Acupuncture is a promising palliative therapy to manage pain and improve quality of life (QOL) of AYA. AYA are underserved and typically endure more morbidity and longer treatments than younger patients. More than half report at least three debilitating cancer-related symptoms and their QOL is significantly lower compared to norms, with symptoms being the greatest contributor to poor QOL. Not surprisingly, AYA identify pain management as an unmet need, leading a majority of AYA to want information on IM or seek it for treatment. Given the potential benefit of acupuncture for addressing unmet needs of AYA by reducing physical suffering, and the established difficulty with pain management using conventional methods, there is a critical need to establish the efficacy of acupuncture for pain management in AYA. The few studies that have evaluated acupuncture in pediatric oncology, demonstrating it to be safe, accepted, and associated with symptom relief are uncontrolled, retrospective, and/or unprotocolized, and none focus on AYA. To establish the evidence base for acupuncture in AYA oncology, research is needed to determine and test optimal acupuncture protocols.