Acupuncture for Chemical Therapy Induced Nausea and Vomiting

This is an expertise-based randomized controlled trial. The hypothesis of this study is that the differences in expertise of acupuncturist may impact clinical effect. In this study, 102 patients will be randomly divided into 4 groups which separately receiving the treatment from senior acupuncturist(clinical experience> 15 years, considered in this trial as highly expertised), junior acupuncturist(clinical experience< 5 years, considered in this trial as lower expertised), junior acupuncturist only acupuncture Neiguan(P6), or not receiving the acupuncture. All participants receive the cisplatin-based chemotherapy and 5-HT3 as antiemetic treatment will be included. Acupuncture treatments are given once daily, the duration of treatment is from the first day receiving cisplatin until two days after cisplatin. NCI and Rhode scale will be used to measure the control of nausea and vomiting. only outcome assessors are blinded. Generalized estimating equations will be used to compare the effects among groups.

Inclusion criteria

• Confirmed diagnosis of cancer
• Must receive cancer chemotherapy containing cisplatin
• Use 5-TH receptor antagonists as an antiemetic drug in the chemotherapy duration

Exclusion criteria

• Concurrent neoplasms or illness that induces nausea independent of chemotherapy
• Received acupuncture treatments for other conditions less than 4 weeks before chemotherapy treatment
• Severe infection
• Severe heart, liver, kidney and brain diseases
• Cardiac pacemaker
• Radiotherapy or hormone therapy during chemotherapy treatments