MedWire News: Breast cancer patients who experience hot flushes during tamoxifen treatment may benefit from undergoing a course of acupuncture, say researchers.

"Acupuncture is increasingly used in western countries to treat the problem of hot flushes in healthy postmenopausal women, so we wanted to see whether it was effective in women with breast cancer suffering from hot flushes as a result of their anti-oestrogen medication," said lead researcher Dr Jill Hervik, from Vestfold Central Hospital in Tønsberg, Norway.

Dr Hervik and colleagues studied 59 postmenopausal breast cancer patients who were receiving treatment with tamoxifen after undergoing surgery.

The patients received either traditional Chinese acupuncture or a dummy acupuncture for 10 weeks, and recorded the number of hot flushes they experienced before, during and after the procedure.

The researchers found that participants assigned to real acupuncture experienced an average 50% reduction in their hot flushes during treatment, compared with beforehand. Furthermore, this beneficial effect lasted for up to 3 months after the last acupuncture session.

In contrast, patients who received the dummy acupuncture treatment experienced no significant reductions in the number of hot flushes they experienced during the study.

Speaking at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Berlin, Germany, Dr Hervik said: "Acupuncture seems to provide effective relief from hot flushes, both day and night, for women taking tamoxifen after surgery for breast cancer. This treatment effect seems to coincide with a general improvement in well-being."

She concluded: "Our results suggest that acupuncture could be used more widely for treating breast cancer patients suffering from symptoms related to their anti-oestrogen medication."