Conservative non-pharmacological treatments for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathies in women treated for breast cancer: a systematic review.
Gianpaolo Ronconi, Dario M Gatto, Sefora Codazza and 7 others
PMID 38502556WHAT IT FOUND
Non-drug treatments for chemotherapy nerve damage in breast cancer survivors showed mixed evidence.
Some trials of acupuncture, exercise, cryotherapy and yoga reported improvements, but other trials did not show improvement, and the review could not support a standard recommendation.
Key findings
01The review found controversial evidence and no standard recommendation for non-drug treatments for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.
02The main treatments studied were acupuncture, physical therapy or exercise, cryotherapy and yoga, and the evidence was mixed.
03Cryotherapy showed some promising results but raised strong doubts about tolerability.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Most included trials had low methodological quality, with unclear or high risk of bias, especially for blinding participants, personnel and outcome assessment. Protocols and outcome measures varied widely, so treatments could not be compared directly. The search was limited to English trials from the last 10 years, so relevant studies outside that period or language may have been missed. Some trials had small samples. It is often unclear what standard or usual care included. Participant totals were calculated from 19 of 25 papers because six papers did not provide enough details.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest with any financial organization. The study was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health Ricerca Corrente, and the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, publication decision or manuscript preparation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that any non-drug treatment has been shown to reliably improve chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. The review found mixed evidence, many trials were small and biased, and several interventions did not show improvement.