Abstract
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is the usage of a mild electrical current through electrodes that stimulate nerves. Patients with malignancies experience pain and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. A systematic review was performed to find research evaluating the effect of TENS on these two common symptoms decreasing the quality of life in cancer patients. PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and EMBASE were searched. Original studies, namely randomized controlled trials, quasi-randomized controlled trials and controlled clinical trials, published between April 2007 and May 2020, were considered. The quality of the selected studies was assessed. Seven papers were incorporated in a qualitative synthesis, with 260 patients in total. The studies varied in terms of design, populations, endpoints, quality, treatment duration, procedures and follow-up period. Based on the results, no strict recommendations concerning TENS usage in the cancer patient population could be issued. However, the existing evidence allows us to state that TENS is a safe procedure that may be self-administered by the patients with malignancy in an attempt to relieve different types of pain. There is a need for multi-center, randomized clinical trials with a good methodological design and adequate sample size.
Highlights
Around 70% of cancer patients experience pain
Pain in patients with malignancies can be a result of the presence of the tumor mass, but it can be related to treatment or postoperative and phantom pain
Four articles were identified after citation screening, including Gadsby et al, which was used in Cochrane systematic reviews (SR) by Hurlow et al, but not included in this SR, as well as Erden and Celic, which was incorporated into this SR [16,32,33,34]
Summary
Around 70% of cancer patients experience pain. It significantly influences healthrelated quality of life (HRQoL), being a subject of interest with regard to numerous instruments used for HRQoL assessment [1]. It is estimated that up to 40% of cancer survivors experience pain, which is treated with a multimodal approach. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a side effect, with sensory symptoms being pain, tingling, allodynia or numbness. There has been no effective treatment for this condition; different techniques are being investigated [7,8,9,10,11]. CIPN is dose-limiting toxicity experienced by up to 40% of patients who receive neurotoxic chemotherapy. The most common drugs associated with this side effect are platins, vinca alcaloids, taxans, eribulin, bortezomib and thalidomide [7,10]
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