Green Treatment for Cancer Pain – Bioelectric Stimulation

  According to statistics, 50-70% of oncology patients have different degrees of pain, and about 5.5 million people suffer from cancer pain every day. In the 2008 Geneva Declaration of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), it is clearly stated that one of the pressing issues in oncology treatment is controlled pain management. The International Academy of Pain (IASP) also identified the theme of 2009 as cancer pain control.  The quality of survival of patients is significantly reduced by cancer pain, and long-term use of pain medication is prone to drug resistance, and some weak patients often cannot tolerate its side effects; some neuropathic cancer pain belongs to the type of opioid insensitive response.     In 1997, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a hearing to determine the important role of acupuncture treatment in the field of cancer pain treatment. In clinical exploration, medical practitioners found that acupuncture point bioelectric stimulation (HANS), based on traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture, can improve the analgesic effect more than several times compared with traditional acupuncture. The principle is to apply low-frequency and high-frequency electrical pulse stimulation on acupuncture points, which is transmitted to the brain to produce a variety of chemicals with morphine-like effects, that is, to activate the body’s own analgesic system. The low frequency electroacupuncture mainly releases enkephalins and endorphins, while the high frequency mainly releases prednisolone. By using high and low frequencies together, the above substances can be released at the same time to exert the strongest analgesic effect.  This green analgesic treatment is a non-drug treatment of alternative medicine, avoiding liver and kidney toxicity, and has gradually received widespread attention from the international medical community. It is commonly used in the Royal Hospital and other famous hospitals in Europe and the United States, and has been recognized by the international medical oncology, pain medicine and neurology circles as a substitute for or reduction of opioid use in patients with poor response or intolerance to opioid drugs. Most patients experience a 30-50% reduction in pain after one cycle (3-4 weeks) of treatment, with a sustained analgesic effect.  With the prolongation of survival with tumor, effective control of cancer pain is an important goal to improve the quality of survival. At the same time, the elimination of pain-induced disturbances in the body’s internal environment has improved the patient’s own resistance, which also contributes to the prolongation of survival.