OBJECTIVE: To study nausea, vomiting and need for rescue antiemetics in patients receiving antiemetic acupuncture, sham acupuncture or standard care during concomitant chemotherapy during pelvic radiotherapy. METHODS: In total, 68 patients participated (75% women, mean age 56 years, 53% had gynecological, 43% colorectal, and 4% other cancer types). Fifty-seven of them were blinded randomized to verum (n = 28) or sham (n = 29) acupuncture, median 10 sessions. During the study period of four weeks, the patients daily registered their nausea, vomiting and consumption of antiemetics. They were compared to a reference group (n = 11) receiving standard care only, who delivered these data once (after receiving mean 27Gy radiotherapy dose). RESULTS: More patients in the sham acupuncture group (17 of 20; 85%, p = 0.019, RR 1.81, CI 1.06 to 3.09) consumed antiemetics, compared to the verum acupuncture group (8 of 17; 47%). In the standard care group, 7 of 11 (63%) consumed antiemetics. The verum acupuncture treated patients experienced lower intensity of nausea than the other patients (p = 0.049). There was a non-significant tendency that more patients receiving either sham acupuncture or standard care experienced nausea (21 of 31; 68%) than patients receiving verum acupuncture (9 of 17; 53%: p = 0.074, RR 1.58, CI 0.91 to 2.74). CONCLUSION: Patients treated with verum acupuncture needed less antiemetics and experienced milder nausea than other patients. Our study was small and many analyses lacked statistical power to detect differences; we welcome further sham-controlled efficacy studies and studies regarding the role of non-specific treatment components for experiencing antiemetic effects of acupuncture.

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