1. Massage therapy decreases cancer-related fatigue: Results from a randomized early phase trial
- Author
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Boadie W. Dunlop, Dedric Carroll, Mylin A. Torres, Margaret Sharenko, James H. Nettles, Erika R. Larson, Becky Kinkead, Mark Hyman Rapaport, Pamela J. Schettler, Sherry A. Edwards, Andrew H. Miller, and Jeffrey J. Rakofsky
- Subjects
Cancer Research ,Chemotherapy ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Massage ,business.industry ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Cancer ,Sequela ,medicine.disease ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Breast cancer ,Oncology ,Quality of life ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Physical therapy ,Medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,medicine.symptom ,Manual therapy ,business ,Cancer-related fatigue - Abstract
BACKGROUND Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a prevalent and debilitating symptom experienced by cancer survivors, yet treatment options for CRF are limited. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of weekly Swedish massage therapy (SMT) versus an active control condition (light touch [LT]) and waitlist control (WLC) on persistent CRF in breast cancer survivors. METHODS This early phase, randomized, single-masked, 6-week investigation of SMT, LT, and WLC enrolled 66 female stage 0-III breast cancer survivors (age range, 32-72 years) who had received surgery plus radiation and/or chemotherapy/chemoprevention with CRF (Brief Fatigue Inventory > 25). The primary outcome was the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI), with the National Institutes of Health PROMIS Fatigue scale secondary. RESULTS Mean baseline MFI scores for 57 evaluable subjects were 62.95 for SMT, 55.00 for LT, and 60.41 for WLC. SMT resulted in a mean (standard deviation) 6-week reduction in MFI total scores of −16.50 (6.37) (n = 20) versus −8.06 (6.50) for LT (n = 20) and an increase of 5.88 (6.48) points for WLC (n = 17) (treatment-by-time P
- Published
- 2017