Lu Zhu,1,* Jing Li,1,* Zhao-Qin Wang,1,2,* Yun-Jia Gu,1 Guo-Na Li,3 Wen-Jia Wang,1 Guang-Bin Pen,1 Qi Li,1 Meng-Die Wu,1 Hui-Rong Liu,1,2 Yan Huang,1,2 Lu-Yi Wu1 

1Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 2Shanghai Research Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Acupuncture, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Lu-Yi Wu, Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 110 Ganhe Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai City, 200437, People’s Republic of China, Email luyitcm@163.com Yan Huang, Shanghai Research Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 650 Wanping South Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai City, 200030, People’s Republic of China, Email huangyan@shutcm.edu.cn

Objective: Moderate-to-severe pain is the most common clinical symptom in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).This trial aimed to analyze the clinical efficacy of Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) in patients of HCC with severe pain and provide a reliable reference for optimizing the clinical diagnostic and therapeutic strategies of HCC.
Methods: A total of 104 eligible patients were randomly allocated to experimental and control groups in a ratio of 1:1.The treatment was administered for 1 week continuously. Patients in both groups were followed up 1 week after the end of the treatment.The primary outcome measure was the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) score, whereas the secondary outcome measures included Brief Pain Inventory BPI-Q3, Q4, Q5 scores, analgesic dose, frequency of opioid-induced gastrointestinal side effects, Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), Quality of Life Scale - Liver Cancer (QOL-LC), and Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) scores.
Results: The NRS scores of experimental group was significantly lower after treatment and at the follow-up than baseline (average P< 0.01), there were also statistical differences between the groups at the above time points (average P< 0.01). BPI-Q3, -Q4, and -Q5 scores in the experimental group were decreased after treatment when compared with those before treatment (average P< 0.01). Furthermore, there were significant improvements of gastrointestinal side effects, KPS, QOL-LC and BPI in the experimental group after treatment, and the above results were statistically significant compared to the control group.
Conclusion: 7-day TEAS treatment can significantly enhance the analgesic effect and maintain for the following week, also reduce the incidence of gastrointestinal side effects caused by opioids, and improve the quality of life of patients with moderate-to-severe HCC-related pain, which has reliable safety and certain clinical promotion value.

Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma pain, transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation, cancer pain, randomized controlled trial