Discussion
sleep disturbance, cognitive impairment, fatigue, anxiety, cancer, anorexia/cachexia, insomnia, cancer-, depression
ADVERSE REACTIONS, CHRONIC PAIN, CANCER, COMPLICATIONS
Patients receiving chemotherapy face a group of unpleasant physical and psychological symptoms, such as fatigue, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and cognitive impairment, often co-occurring as symptom clusters. These symptom clusters can have profoundly negative effects on patients’ quality of life.Numerous studies have indicated that oriental medicine not only alleviates symptoms (e.g., fatigue, chronic pain, anorexia/cachexia, and insomnia) of patients with cancer and improves their quality of life but also diminishes adverse reactions and complications caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Acupuncture, one of the major components of oriental medicine, is an available complementary therapy to relieve cancer- and treatment-related complications. More importantly, EA is readily replicable due to its standardized interventional approach [This study will be the first clinical trial that assesses the effects of EA across multiple symptom clusters in cancer patients and survivors. The findings from this trial will be an encouraging step toward expanding survivorship care to meet the needs of the growing cancer survivor population. Understanding symptom clusters in cancer survivors may result in greater therapeutic benefits by integrating treatments for concurrent symptoms, thus improving quality of life [