Acupuncture for Hot Flashes in Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer, a Randomized Controlled Trial

This research study is evaluating acupuncture, a medical therapy in which hair-thin, stainless steel needles are shallowly inserted into specific points to help the body's natural healing process, as a possible treatment to reduce hot flashes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Breast Cancer
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: Acupuncture; Other: Usual Care

Detailed Description

Hot flashes are a sensation of sudden onset of body warmth, flushing and sweating. Hot flashes are common side effects of breast cancer treatments and can affect mood and daily life. Medications can help ease hot flashes, but many patients continue to experience symptoms despite these treatments.

Acupuncture is a complementary therapy in which, hair-thin, sterile disposable needles are inserted into various spots on the skin, with the goal of affecting body's natural healing system. Acupuncture has been tested in clinical trials in cancer patients and has been shown to be helpful in treating a number of side effects of cancer treatment, such as nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy. A few early studies have suggested that acupuncture may help to lessen hot flashes, but more information is needed about the benefits of acupuncture in breast cancer patients.

This study is being done to test whether acupuncture can help to reduce the number and intensity of hot flashes in breast cancer patients who are being treated with mediations such as tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors, such as anastrozole (Arimidex), exemestane (Aromasin), and letrozole (Femara).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 84
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
      • Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• History of histologically or cytologically proven Stage I-III breast cancer with estrogen receptor positive with HER-2 positive or negative tumor;
• Premenopausal or postmenopausal status;
• Completed all primary chemotherapy and surgery;
• Currently undergoing adjuvant hormonal therapy (e.g. Tamoxifen and/or Aromatase inhibitors) with or without ovarian function suppression for at least 4 weeks at study entry; the use of Trastuzumab after adjuvant chemotherapy is allowed;
• Reported persistent hot flashes for at least 4 weeks AND more than 14 episodes of hot flashes per week (2 hot flashes per day) during the week prior to the study entry;
• Age ≥ 18 years;
• Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of 0 or 1;
• Signed informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

Undergoing chemotherapy or planned surgery, chemotherapy, change doses and regimen of hormonal therapy during the study period;

• Unstable cardiac disease or myocardial infarction within 6 months prior to study entry;
• Uncontrolled seizure disorder or history of seizure;
• Active clinically significant uncontrolled infection;
• Use of acupuncture for hot flashes within 6 months prior to the study entry;
• Uncontrolled major psychiatric disorders, such as major depression or psychosis;
• Newly starting pharmacologic treatment of hot flashes such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and/or anti-convulsant for less than 4 weeks prior to study entry. Participants may continue with medications or therapies for the treatment of hot-flashes while participating in the study if the medication has been taking for more than 4 weeks prior to study entry AND the dose of the medication is going to be kept consistently during the study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Immediate Acupuncture; Will receive a standardized acupuncture protocol for a 10-week period; 20 sessions: twice a week for 10 weeks; After the completion of the 10 weeks main study period, participants will cross over to the usual care as a follow-up without acupuncture for additional 10 weeks.	Device: Acupuncture; Acupuncture is a complementary therapy in which, hair-thin, sterile disposable needles are inserted into various spots on your skin, with the goal of affecting body's natural healing system
Active Comparator: Delayed acupuncture; Will receive standard usual care without acupuncture for 10 weeks; Participants will cross over to receive the same acupuncture protocol for 10 weeks --10 sessions: once a week for 10 weeks before exiting the study	Other: Usual Care; the current standard of care with non-hormonal pharmacotherapy of western medicine

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change From Baseline in Mean Weekly HFS Score Between Acupuncture and Usual Care Arms at the End of Week 10	Daily Hot Flash Diary (DHFD) The DHFD is a measure of self-reported hot flash data that uses a diary to record the frequency and severity of hot flashes based on a 4-point scale (i.e., mild, moderate, severe, or very severe) to provide a hot flash score/index that reflects both number and severity of hot flashes (i.e., sum of the number of hot flashes multiplied by a weighted severity). Patients were asked to record daily for a week at five time points through the trial: baseline, week 5, week 10, week 15, and week 20. Negative changes would suggest improvements in number, type, or severity.	10 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Changes in the Total and Subscores in Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy- Breast Cancer	Changes in scores were calculated as (Week-10 - baseline). Since a higher score on any FACT-B subscale indicates better quality of life, a positive change would suggest that the patient's score improved during that time interval.	10 weeks
Changes in the Endocrine Symptom Subscale (ESS) in Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy- Endocrine Symptoms (FACT-ES)	The ESS is one subscale of the FACT-ES that assesses hormonal symptoms of endocrine therapy. The score ranges from 0-76 with higher scores indicating greater freedom from symptoms. Changes in scores were calculated as (Week-10 - baseline). Since a higher score reflects increased freedom from hormonal symptoms, a positive change would suggest that the patient's symptoms improved during that time interval.	10 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Collaborators: The Comprehensive and Integrative Medicine Institute of South Korea
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Weidong Lu, PhD, MPH, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Baedorf Kassis S, Lu W, White SA, Shin IH, Park SH, Jeong YJ, Yao C, Ligibel J, Bierer BE. Developing and implementing a self-monitoring toolkit for a coordinated multinational randomized acupuncture trial. BMC Complement Med Ther. 2022 Jun 17;22(1):161. doi: 10.1186/s12906-022-03648-4.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 15, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): January 31, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 31, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 19, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 19, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): December 21, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 9, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 23, 2026
• Last Verified: February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Breast Cancer
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Neoplasms by Site; Neoplasms; Skin Diseases; Breast Diseases; Skin and Connective Tissue Diseases; Breast Neoplasms; Therapeutics; Complementary Therapies; Acupuncture Therapy
• Other Study ID Numbers: 18-371

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: The Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center encourages and supports the responsible and ethical sharing of data from clinical trials. De-identified participant data from the final research dataset used in the published manuscript may only be shared under the terms of a Data Use Agreement. Requests may be directed to: [contact information for Sponsor- Investigator or designee]. The protocol and statistical analysis plan will be made available on Clinicaltrials.gov only as required by federal regulation or as a condition of awards and agreements supporting the research.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Data can be shared no earlier than 1 year following the date of publication.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Requests may be directed to: [contact information for Sponsor- Investigator or designee].

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: Yes
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No