Ahles, T.A., Tope, D.M., Pinkson, B., Walch, S., Hann, D., Whedon, M., … Silberfarb, P.M. (1999). Massage therapy for patients undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 18, 157-163.

Patients scheduled to undergo bone marrow transplant were randomly assigned to receive either massage therapy or standard treatment. Patients in the massage therapy group received three 20-minute sessions of shoulder, neck, head, and facial massage per week. The average length of stay was three weeks, so as many as nine sessions were reported during patients’ hospital stays. Massages were performed by a trained, healing arts specialist with more than 10 years of experience.

• The sample consisted of 34 patients.
• The mean age of patients was 41 years ± 9.3.
• Race and ethnicity were not reported.
• All patients were bone marrow transplant recipients.
• The majority of the patients had breast cancer (65%); the remaining diagnoses were acute myelogenous leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or other (ovarian cancer or acute promyelocytic leukemia).

Participants were inpatients and were scheduled for bone marrow transplant at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.

The study design was a randomized, controlled clinical trial.

• Numeric scales from 0-10 were used to evaluate nausea, with 0 representing an absence of the symptom and 10 representing an extreme level of the symptom.
• Total dosages of opioids, anxiolytics, and antiemetics were recorded because of confounding effects of the drugs on anxiety, nausea, and emotional distress.
• Data were collected prior to and following the patients’ first, fifth, and final massages (on day 7 and at mid-treatment and predischarge).

Patients in the massage group experienced significantly larger reductions in nausea than the standard group at day 7. The strongest effects were seen immediately after massage when patients experienced a reduction in diastolic blood pressure, nausea, distress, and anxiety. How long the positive effects were maintained is difficult to evaluate.

• The sample is small and from one institution.
• The timing of massage was variable.