Acupuncture in Treating Nerve Pain in Patients With Stage I, Stage II, or Stage III Breast Cancer Who Are Receiving Paclitaxel

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:

I. To explore the potential for the use of acupuncture to prevent a worsening of the nerve damage in patients (during treatment) due to paclitaxel as measured by a Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Evaluate the impact of acupuncture based on neurological assessment, quantitative sensory tests and nerve conduction tests.

II. Evaluate the improvement observed when treating patients for peripheral neuropathy (post-chemotherapy) with acupuncture based on the same metrics.

III. To correlate objective measures of neuropathy (nerve conduction, quantitative sensory tests, neuropathy composite score, and blood cytokine levels) with the subjective questionnaire/quality of life measures.

OUTLINE:

Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

ARM I: Patients receive paclitaxel every 2 weeks for 4 courses as standard of care. Patients undergo acupuncture therapy comprising 2 30-minute sessions a week for 4 weeks during courses 3 and 4.

ARM II: Patients receive paclitaxel every 2 weeks for 4 courses as standard of care. Patients then undergo acupuncture therapy comprising 2 30-minute sessions a week for 4 weeks.