A trial looking at acupressure to help relieve sickness from chemotherapy

Please note this trial is no longer recruiting patients.

This trial aims to find out if acupressure wristbands help people who feel sick after chemotherapy.

Feeling or being sick is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy. You usually have anti sickness drugs at the same time as your chemotherapy and afterwards to try to prevent sickness. Some studies show how this helps to stop people actually being sick, but many still feel sick.

This study will use acupressure wristbands. These are elastic wristbands with a plastic button. The button is positioned so that it applies pressure to a certain point on the wrist - the acupressure point.

The aim of this trial is to find out if acupressure can help to stop people feeling sick when they are having chemotherapy and standard anti-sickness treatments. They will also look at whether the benefits of acupressure are justified by the costs of providing it on the NHS.

Recruitment

Start 01/11/2008

End 30/09/2010

Phase

Phase 3

Who can enter

You can enter this trial if you

Are due to have chemotherapy after surgery as an outpatient at one of the recruiting hospital
Are due to have chemotherapy once every 3 weeks
Are able to care for yourself
Are at least 16 years of age

You cannot enter this trial if you

Have used an acupressure wristband before
Are due to stay in hospital overnight to have chemotherapy
Are due to have radiotherapy at the same time as your chemotherapy
Have any condition that may cause sickness, including cancer in the liver, a blocked bowel or chronic alcoholism
Have sickness from opioid painkillers
Have swelling from blocked lymph vessels (lymphoedema) in one of your arms

Trial design

This trial aims to recruit about 700 people due to start chemotherapy. Please note, it is only recruiting people who are already patients at the recruiting hospitals. There are 3 different groups in this trial and it is randomised. The people taking part are put into the different treatment groups by a computer. Neither you nor your doctor will be able to decide which group you are in.

Group 1 will have standard care to relieve sickness. You will have the usual supportive care you would normally have, for example anti sickness drugs. But you will be monitored more closely for sickness as a result of taking part in this trial.

Groups 2 or 3 will have standard care and will also have a pair of acupressure wristbands to wear. There are 2 different types of wristband. For the purposes of this study, they are called wristband A and B. Group 2 will have wristbands A. Group 3 will have wristband B. You will not know which type you have or whether you are in group 2 or 3.

Both types have an elastic wristband with a 1cm round plastic button which presses against a specific acupressure point on your wrist. The research nurse will show you exactly where to position the wristband and button on your wrist. You will also have some written instructions to take home.

You have chemotherapy on the first day of week 1, then no chemotherapy for the next 2 weeks. This 3 week period is called a cycle of treatment. If you are in group 2 or 3, you start wearing the wristbands at the start of each chemotherapy cycle and keep them on for 7 days. You do this for 4 cycles of your treatment.

Whichever group you are in, you complete some questionnaires before you start chemotherapy. These will ask about your sickness levels, quality of life and level of anxiety. Some of these questionnaires will be repeated after each cycle of treatment. The research nurse will explain this to you in more detail.

Later on in the trial, you may be asked to take part in a discussion group. The researchers will invite about 24 of the 700 people recruited. There will be about 6 to 8 people in each group. You will meet at the hospital to discuss how you feel about the wristbands and being part of the study.

Hospital visits

There are no extra visits associated with taking part in this trial, unless you are invited to one of the discussion groups. Your appointments to see a doctor, have blood tests and have chemotherapy will usually be every 3 weeks. Your chemotherapy nurse will explain these to you in more detail.

Side effects

Acupressure is not known to cause any side effects and people generally have no problems with it. Taking part in this study should not make the side effects of your chemotherapy worse, or cause any extra side effects.

There is a chance that one type of wristband may work better than the other type. But the researchers will not know this until the end of the study. When the study has finished, you will get a summary of the results and be invited to a presentation about them.

There is information about the side effects of chemotherapy on CancerHelp UK.