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Cancer-related pain affects a significant proportion of people living with cancer, and standard drug-based treatments do not always provide adequate relief. Warming-dredging acupuncture is a technique that combines thermal and mechanical stimulation, and this systematic review and meta-analysis sought to evaluate its effectiveness, safety, and potential to reduce reliance on opioid medicines when used alongside routine pain management.
Researchers searched nine major databases as well as clinical trial registries, identifying seventeen randomised controlled trials involving a total of 1,278 participants. The pooled results indicated that warming-dredging acupuncture significantly improved pain relief rates and reduced pain scores compared to control groups. Notably, the rate of adverse events was substantially lower in those receiving warming-dredging acupuncture, and there was a trend suggesting reduced use of analgesic medicines, although this finding was less conclusive. The quality of evidence, assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations system, ranged from moderate to very low depending on the outcome measured, reflecting limitations such as risk of bias in the included trials.
The authors conclude that warming-dredging acupuncture appears to be a potentially valuable addition to multimodal cancer pain management, though higher-quality research is needed to confirm these findings with greater certainty.
Conclusion: Warming-dredging acupuncture combined with routine pain management showed meaningful improvements in pain relief and a favourable safety profile, supporting its role as a promising adjunct therapy for cancer-related pain, pending stronger evidence.
Source: Tu J, Wu Q, Wu J and colleagues. Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) (2026). View on PubMed (PMID 42597724) · doi:10.3389/fpain.2026.1870255