Auriculotherapy with needles to improve the quality of life of cancer patients: an integrative literature review

Objective: The study's goal has been to identify in the literature the use of auriculotherapy with needles as an intervention to improve cancer patients' life quality. Methods: It is an Integrative Literature Review of articles published in Portuguese, English, Spanish and/or German, available in full at the databases VHL, CAPES, CINHAL, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. The study was carried out in January 2017. The descriptors employed were cancer, neoplasms, auriculotherapy, ear acupuncture, and auricular acupuncture, and six studies were then selected. Results: The use of auricular therapy with needles as interventions in the clinical symptoms due to cancer and its treatment, as well as in the improvement of the domains affected in people's life quality have indicated satisfactory evidence. Conclusion: The evidences have identified an improvement in the quality of life of oncology patients that underwent auriculotherapy with needles, therefore, this intervention is a safe, effective and economical complementary therapy, which is very well accepted by the patients