Acupuncture appeared to relieve some patients of discomfort from radiation-induced xerostomia in a study reported April 17 in the journal Head & Neck.
For the study, researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston treated 19 patients twice a week for 4 weeks. They measured the patients' salivary flow and surveyed them about their quality of life.
The physical well-being scores improved significantly from baseline to week 8, but the researchers found no significant difference in saliva flow. There was no control group in this pilot study.
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