ACUPUNCTURE APPLICATION FOR CANCER PAIN MANAGEMENT AND ITS UNDERLYING MECHANISMS

Objective: To examine the applications of acupuncture for cancer pain manage-ment and the underlying molecular mechanisms. Materials and Methods: This narrative review was performed by collecting clinical trials, basic research, and reviews on acupuncture for cancer pain treatment. Articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals were included. Manuscripts not written in the English language were excluded. We researched PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases using keywords or combinations of the keywords: "cancer pain" and "acupuncture". Articles published between 1 January 1989 and 8 August 2022 were selected. We further screened articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals that were writ-ten in English. We searched for relevant articles based on the title and abstract of the retrieved scientific outcome. The articles that potentially fit our aim were finally discussed.Results: An amount of 1318 articles were included in the initial search. After the remotion of 200 manuscripts before the screening and the exclusion of non-pertinent 50 articles, and 30 review papers, as well as letters (n=27), proceeding papers (n=24), and other papers (n=72), 915 articles were selected and discussed in the review. For narrative aims, we divided the discussion into two paragraphs "Acupuncture-induced Analgesic Mechanisms in Cancer Pain" and "Efficacy and Safety of Acupuncture in Cancer Pain Treatment". Conclusions: Given that cancer pain management requires a multimodal approach that in-volves a combination of pharmacological approaches with non-pharmacological strategies, acu-puncture has interesting potential applications.