Impact of Scrambler Therapy on Pain Management and Quality of Life in Cancer Patients: A Study of Twenty Cases

Komal Kashyap, Saurabh Joshi, Saurabh Vig, Vishwajeet Singh, Sushma Bhatnagar, Komal Kashyap, Saurabh Joshi, Saurabh Vig, Vishwajeet Singh, Sushma Bhatnagar

Abstract

Aim of the study: To study the effect of scrambler therapy on patients with chronic cancer pain.

Materials and methods: This is a prospective, observational study conducted on patients with chronic pain due to malignancy which is not responding to oral analgesics. A total of twenty patients were included in the study (ten males, ten females) with a visual analog scale score of >4 on oral analgesics. Patients aged 18-70 years with a life expectancy of >3 months having bony, neuropathic, or mixed type of pain were included in the study. A total of 12 sessions of scrambler therapy were planned, ten sessions on consecutive days and one session each on two follow-up visits after 1 week each. Each session lasted for 40 min. Pain relief and quality of life according to the World Health Organization Quality of Life were recorded as primary outcome variables.

Results: All patients had good pain relief and improvement in all four domains of quality of life. Pain scores decreased significantly (P < 0.01) after each session and at each follow-up. Patients showed significant improvement in physical, psychological, social, and environmental health (P < 0.01) after the therapy.

Conclusion: Scrambler therapy offers a promising role in the pain physician's armamentarium as an adjunct to pharmacological therapy for the treatment of chronic drug-resistant cancer pain; it may bring down analgesic drug requirements significantly and improve quality of life in cancer patients. Larger prospective, randomized multicenter studies are needed to validate the findings of the small pilot studies published in literature so far.

Keywords: Chronic pain; World Health Organization Quality of Life; scrambler therapy; visual analog scale scores.

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
CALMARE MC 5A with five channels of electrodes.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Placement of electrodes in a patient. Involvement of C3 dermatome in a patient as well placement of electrodes and change in position of electrodes with the changing area of pain during therapy. (a) Before treatment. (b) Primarily area of pain. (c) During treatment of ST. (d) After treatment of ST. (e) Area of pain. ST (scrambler therapy).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Impact of scrambler therapy on World Health Organization domains of quality of life. As seen in the figure, improvement in all four domains of life according to World Health Organization Quality of Life was seen with scrambler therapy after the ten sessions and on each follow-up (BL - baseline, FU - follow-up).

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