A new study led by a researcher from George Washington University Cancer Center has found that cold therapy can help breast cancer patients avoid painful nerve damage caused by chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy drugs like paclitaxel and nab-paclitaxel are widely used to treat breast cancer, but they often have a serious side effect called peripheral neuropathy.
This condition causes pain, tingling, or numbness in the hands, feet, or legs, and in many cases, the symptoms can last long after treatment ends.
The study focused on cryotherapy, a treatment that involves exposing the body or specific areas to extremely cold temperatures to provide health benefits. The researchers found that using cryotherapy during chemotherapy reduced the risk of peripheral neuropathy by 55%.
This means that patients who received cold therapy were much less likely to experience nerve pain compared to those who did not.
The findings come from a meta-analysis, which means the researchers reviewed and combined data from multiple previous studies to get a clearer picture of the overall effects of cold therapy.
Their study, titled “A meta-analysis of the utility of cryotherapy for preventing peripheral neuropathy among breast cancer patients receiving paclitaxel and nab-paclitaxel,” was published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
These results suggest that cold therapy could be a simple and effective way to help breast cancer patients avoid long-term nerve damage caused by chemotherapy. More research may help determine the best ways to use this treatment and make it widely available to patients undergoing chemotherapy.
The research findings can be found in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
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