Acupuncture plays an important role in Non-Toxic Integrative Cancer Treatment. It has been a common method in cancer prevention. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that “the deficiency of vital Qi” is the cause of cancer occurrence and development, and treating diseases should focus on its root cause. Therefore, cancer treatment and prevention must attach great importance to strengthening the body resistance. Moreover, cancer treatment and prevention should strengthen the vital Qi and improve body immunity. Acupuncture has various features including safety, effectiveness, no side effects, economical, convenience and high acceptability among patients. Besides, acupuncture can regulate meridians, Qi and blood, organs, yin and yang, strengthen body resistance and eliminate pathogen. Acupuncture has the characteristic of integrity and bidirectionality, which can effectively regulate cancer patient’s disorder of organs function.
The advantages of acupuncture in cancer treatment and prevention are as follows. Firstly, strengthen body resistance and eliminate the pathogen, and strengthen the immune system. Secondly, it clears the meridians, smooth the movement of Qi and blood and relieve the cancer pains. Thirdly, strengthen the organ function and regulate the balance of yin and yang. Acupuncture can not only activate patient’s weak immune surveillance, but also suppress the overactive immune response. Acupuncture provides bidirectional regulation for immune dysfunction, which makes the conversion of immune cell like T lymphocyte and lymphocyte raise, and improve the activity of Natural killer cells (NK cells), lymphokine-activated killer cell (LAK cell) and macrophage. This works effectively in killing and damaging cancer cells and causing apoptosis of the cancer cells.
Acupuncture improves immunity and anti-cancer effect as shown in the aspects below. In the precancerous stage, acupuncture can prevent malignant tumor from occurring while during the development process of tumor, it can control tumor growth, improve symptoms, alleviate side effect and toxic effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, relieve cancer pain, improve quality of life and extend patients’ life. What’s more, acupuncture can be applied during the entire process of cancer treatment. The integration of pulse acupuncture, Dong’s unique extra-ordinary point, dry needling, midnight-noon ebb-flow method (milli-needle therapy, scalp acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, abdominal acupuncture, fire-needle acupuncture, wrist-ankle acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping therapy, needle-embedding therapy, acupoint injection therapy, acupoint application therapy) can strengthen vital Qi, benefit Qi and blood, restore to the condition that “The vital Qi exists in your body, so the disease won’t disturb you” and give full play to the potency “strengthen body resistance and eliminate the pathogen” of acupuncture.
Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department in Clifford Hospital develops individualized treatment for different patients according to the stages of cancer.
Precancerous Stage: Integrating acupuncture with traditional Chinese medicine can restore some dysplastic cells to normal cells, which effectively prevent benign and chronic diseases from getting worse. Precancerous stage is an important period of cancer prevention. Therefore, great importance should be attached to regulating Qi and blood and consolidating the origin by means of acupuncture, and boost the self-repair ability through benefiting Qi and tonifying spleen, liver and kidney, which results in preventing normal cells from converting to cancer cells and eliminating the potential malignant tumor from the beginning.
Early Stage: In the early stage, cancer treatment should focus on the integration of strengthening the body resistance and eliminating the pathogen, and place great emphasis on acupuncture in clearing meridians and balancing the yin and yang. Acupuncture can be applied before radical surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and throughout cancer treatment process. It can strengthen the organ function, boost the body resistance, restore internal balance and help cancer patients get holistic healing. The available acupoints in acupuncture are mingmen, shenyu, guanyuan and qihai, etc. Also, Acupuncture can minimize the side effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which is beneficial to the patient’s recovery later.
Medium and Advanced Stage: Tumor grows rapidly in the medium and advanced stage and patients suffer from deficiency of vital Qi and excessive pathogen at this stage. Acupuncture should focus on strengthening body resistance so as to restore vital Qi, fight for the pathogen, live with tumor, relieve cancer pain and improve quality of life. It’s of vital importance for advanced cancer patients to effectively control cancer pain and improve quality of life. Mild pain can be relieved by acupuncture, which avoids the damage to stomach and liver and kidney function from western medicine. Severe pain can be treated with acupuncture and analgesic, which can better relieve cancer pains, reduce the side effect of western medicine and drug addiction, and has better analgesic effect than three-step analgesic ladder strategy.
