[Blade acupuncture combined with functional exercise for chronic pain after non-small cell lung cancer surgery: a randomized controlled trial].

Objective: To observe the clinical efficacy of blade acupuncture combined with functional exercise for chronic pain after non-small cell lung cancer surgery.

Methods: A total of 62 patients with chronic pain after surgery for non-small cell lung cancer were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 31 cases in each group. The patients in the control group were treated with functional exercise. On the base of the treatment in the control group, the patients in the observation group were treated with blade acupuncture at the tendon nodes or painful points, once a week for 4 weeks. The visual analogue scale (VAS) scores of pain before treatment and day 1, day 7, day 14, day 28 of treatment and day 90, day 180 when follow up were compared between the two groups; the brief pain inventory (BPI) scores before and after treatment were compared between the two groups.

Results: The VAS score in the observation group at each time point after treatment was lower than that before treatment (<0.01), and lower than that in the control group (<0.01). Compared before treatment, the daily life score, emotion score, walking ability score, sleep score and life enjoyment score and total score of BPI in the observation group were reduced after treatment (<0.05), and the daily life score, emotion score, sleep score and total score of BPI in the observation group were lower than those in the control group (<0.05).

Conclusion: The blade acupuncture combined with functional exercise could effectively alleviate the chronic pain after non-small cell lung cancer surgery, improve the quality of life of patients, and the effect is lasting and stable.