Real-World Evidence of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Treatment on Cancer: A Literature-Based Review

Table 2

Acupuncture and other treatments in the treatment of tumor-related complications and adverse reactions.

Disease or symptom	Acupuncture and other treatments	Primary outcome	Therapeutic effect
Cancer-related pain (CRP) [59]	Acupoints on the back (back-shu points)	Pain level measured with numerical rating scale (NRS)	Relieve cancer-related pain at midtreatment and posttreatment
Breast cancer-related symptom [60]	Acupuncture	Improvement and relief of symptoms	Perceived improvement in muscle pain, postsurgical pain, hot flushes, nausea/vomiting, low mood/depression, anxiety, lymphedema, and neuropathy
Breast cancer-related flushes and night sweats [61]	Auricular acupuncture	Improvement of hot flushes and night sweats (HFNS) associated with adjuvant hormonal treatments	Relief from hot flushes and night sweats
Cancer pain [62]	Acupuncture	Pain level measured with numerical rating scale (NRS) and daily opioid dose	Pain improved and opioid use decreased
Cancer-related insomnia [63]	Electroacupuncture	Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI), sleep diary and actigraphy-derived sleep parameters, functional assessment of cancer therapy-fatigue (FACT-F), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and salivary levels of cortisol and melatonin	Improvements in various sleep indicators