癌症疼痛(Cancer Pain)是腫瘤患者最常見且最難以忍受的症狀之一,常見原因為癌症惡化、腫瘤生長、骨轉移、化學治療或放射線治療,抑制癌症疼痛使用嗎啡製劑作為止痛療法是目前現代醫學中之主流療法,然而嗎啡製劑引起的副作用多,如:噁心、噁吐、頭昏、頭暈或成癮性,加上目前只能控制30%的癌症疼痛,因此針灸與中藥處理癌症疼痛成為一個備受矚目的議題。本案例為一56歲男性癌症疼痛患者,罹患大腸癌及肺癌,因右上臂與右肩胛骨疼痛已半年,Numerical rating scales : 10,經由腫瘤科轉診至本院傳統醫學部門診進行追蹤治療,中醫診斷為痺證,治則為經脈所過、主治所及。在給予現代醫學藥物嗎啡®(Morphine HCI 10 mg/1 ml)配合針刺療程同時進行下,可有效減少嗎啡使用劑量。本文欲藉此病例提供一使用針刺治療癌症疼痛過程、症狀及中西醫整合療法的思維與方法,可評估嗎啡®與針刺療程整合治療之可行性。
Cancer Pain is one of the most common and intolerable symptoms of cancer patients. It is often related to cancer deterioration, tumor growth, bone metastasis, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Recently, guideline for patients suffered from cancer pain isusing morphine as an analgesic therapy. However, morphine agents lead to lots of side effects such as: nausea, vomiting, dizziness and respiratory depression. Moreover, the current therapy only control 30% patients of cancer pain. Therefore, acupuncture and Chinese medicine treatments of cancer pain become a high-profile issue. This case is a 56-year-old male cancer pain patient suffering from colorectal cancer and lung cancer. He was referred from Hematology and Oncology due to poorly controlled pain of the right upper arm and right scapula for half a year. It is effective to reduce the dosage of morphine when morphine (Morphine HCI HCI 10 mg / 1 ml) combined with acupuncture at the same time. This article would like to provide a thinking and method to treat cancer pain by acupuncture treatment and integrated Chinese and Western medicine.