Ultrasound Acupuncture for Oxaliplatin-induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Patients With Colorectal Cancer: A Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Oxaliplatin is frequently used in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. However, peripheral neuropathy is a severe adverse effect of oxaliplatin that may persist and impact quality of life. OBJECTIVE: To assess the potential effects of ultrasound acupuncture for the alleviation of symptoms related to oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (OIPN) among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. DESIGN: Prospective cohort pilot study. SETTING: Education and research hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Patients with a diagnosis of stage II-IV colorectal cancer undergoing oxaliplatin-based treatment regimens who experienced OIPN symptoms (n = 17). INTERVENTIONS: Pulsed therapeutic ultrasound (1 MHz) at bilateral acupuncture points of PC6, PC7, BL60, and KI1 was administered for 5 minutes per point daily for 12 days. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Pain Quality Assessment Scale (PQAS), Chemotherapy-induced Neurotoxicity Questionnaire (CINQ), quantitative touch-detection threshold, cold-trigger pain withdrawal latency, and quality of life (EORTC QLQ-C30) were measured at baseline (day 0), pre-intervention (day 12, post wash-out period), post-intervention (day 24), and final follow-up (day 54). A P value of less than .05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Scores of PQAS and CINQ significantly improved after ultrasound acupuncture at post-intervention and follow-up compared to both baseline and pre-intervention. Similar trends were also observed for the quantitative sensory testing, where touch-detection threshold significantly decreased and cold-trigger pain withdrawal latency significantly increased after ultrasound acupuncture. Patients also showed an improvement on quality of life outcomes as measured by QLQ-C30 post-intervention and at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasound acupuncture could be an effective intervention for OIPN symptoms for patients with colorectal cancer. However, larger and randomized clinical trials with placebo controls are needed to confirm such effects.

Enhanced functional recovery from sciatic nerve crush injury through a combined treatment of cold-water swimming and mesenchymal stem cell transplantation.

OBJECTIVE: Although regimens of stem cell implantation can elicit functional recovery following peripheral nerve injury, the degree of outcome is still limited. This study evaluated the synergistic effects of cold-water swimming (CWS) and mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplantation on functional recovery of crushed sciatic nerve in rats. METHOD: Forty Sprague-Dawley rats that had their sciatic nerve crushed during surgery were randomly divided into four groups: MSCCWS group, treated with combination of MSC and CWS; MSC group, treated with MSC alone; CWS group, treated with CWS alone; and non-treated group, without any treatments. The sciatic function index (SFI), vertical activity (VA), ankle activity (AA) and electrophysiological study were examined before, immediately after surgery, after the treatment and after 4  weeks from treatment. Morphological and S100 immunohistochemical studies were also performed. RESULTS: The MSCCWS group showed a greater improvement in SFI, VA, AA, peak amplitudes and onset latencies of compound muscle action potential (CMAP) in sciatic nerve and infiltration of immune cells with significant difference from the MSC, CWS and non-treated groups (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: MSC transplantation combined with CWS could achieve better results in functional recovery than a single treatment of MSC alone or CWS alone in nerve crush injury.