Secondary effects and quality of life with chemotherapy: assessing the impact of an osteopathic treatment (multicentric randomized clinical trial)

The goal of research. The purpose of this work was to assess the effectiveness of osteopathic treatment aimed to improve the quality of life of patients receiving chemotherapy.

Materials and methods. The study was conducted by four osteopaths at the oncology departments of four hospitals in Paris region. Patients were randomly divided into two groups. Patients of the first group received osteopathic treatment first, and then a placebo was used. Patients of the second group received the placebo first and then osteopathic treatment. We used a cross-protocol during two consecutive courses of treatment: each patient served as his or her own control. During the treatment stage osteopathic therapy was used; when the patient was control, the osteopathic treatment was imitated. A modified QLQ-C30 questionnaire was used as an evaluation criterion. It was fi lled in three times: before osteopathic treatment (control), after real treatment (treatment) and after simulated treatment (placebo).

Results. The study involved 40 patients — 27 women and 13 men. The differences between the treatment and control stages were very highly significant for such criteria as nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath, highly significant for such criteria as fatigue, and significant for such criteria as pain and sleep disturbance. Efficiency was statistically higher compared with placebo for all of these criteria. No differences were found associated with the sequence of real or simulated treatment, as well as with the variability of osteopaths in different centers.

Conclusion. The results of this study indicate that osteopathy is a clinically effective method of correction of side effects in patients receiving chemotherapy. These results are interesting enough to suggest that the presence of osteopaths at oncology departments may be useful for cancer patients. Subsequent studies should confirm these results and quantify the effectiveness of osteopathic correction, so that it could be fully integrated into the classical treatment.

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