[Wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs on refractory cancer pain: a randomized controlled trial].

Objective: To compare the clinical effect of wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs and opioid drugs alone in treating refractory cancer pain.

Methods: Sixty patients were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each one. The opioid drugs in accordance with the three-step analgesic principle and other auxiliary drugs were treated in the control group. On the basis of the treatment in the control group, wrist-ankle needle was added in the observation group, and acupoints were selected according to the pain site and the primary focus, the treatment was given once a day for 10 days. The visual analogue scale (VAS) score, the times of pain outbreaks and the incidence of adverse reactions were compared at the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th days of treatment and the 3rd and 7th days after treatment. The therapeutic effect in the two groups were compared after treatment.

Results: Compared with the control group, the VAS scores in the observation group were significantly reduced from the 2nd day of wrist-ankle needle treatment, and continued to the 3rd day after the end of the treatment (<0.05), but there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups on the 7th day after the end of the treatment (>0.05); compared with the control group, the times of pain outbreaks in the observation group decreased from the 2nd day to the 10th day of treatment (all <0.05); the incidence of nausea, vomiting and constipation in the observation group was significantly reduced compared with the control group (<0.05); the total effective rate in the observation group was 86.7% (26/30), which was higher than 76.7% (23/30) in the control group (<0.05).

Conclusion: Wrist-ankle needle combined with opioid drugs can increase the efficacy of the refractory cancer pain and reduce the adverse reactions of opioid drugs.