NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hypnosis before breast surgery reduces the amount of medication required during the procedure and lessens postsurgical pain and nausea, according to results of new study. Hospitals also benefit from lower costs.
These findings, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, stem from a study of 200 patients recruited from two Mount Sinai Medical Center surgical practices in New York City. The women were scheduled to undergo a breast biopsy or lumpectomy, with or without removal of a portion of the surrounding lymph nodes.
The patients were randomly assigned to hypnosis or to a "control" procedure that involved empathic listening. Both procedures were conducted for 15 minutes an hour before surgery by a clinical psychologist. At discharge, the patients reported their postsurgical symptoms.
Patients in the hypnosis group required less lidocaine and less propofol during surgery than patients in the control group, Dr. Guy H. Montgomery and colleagues report.
The hypnosis group also had less pain and nausea after surgery than did the control group. Patients' assessments of discomfort, fatigue, and emotional upset were also more favorable after hypnosis. According to the investigators, all of these effects were "clinically meaningful."
Montgomery's team estimates that surgical breast procedures at the Mount Sinai Medical Center cost an average of $8,561 per patient. Hypnosis before surgery reduced that cost by $772.71 per patient.
A short hypnosis session "appears to be one of the rare clinical interventions that can simultaneously reduce both symptom burden and costs," they conclude.
In a related editorial, Dr. David Spiegel from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, remarks that pain relief provided by hypnosis can change the experience of pain as much as many analgesic drugs do.
"It is now abundantly clear that we can retrain the brain to reduce pain," he writes.
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, September 5, 2007.
Hypnosis is a complementary medicine technique that can help a person better manage undesirable experiences and behaviors. Research has shown that hypnosis techniques can help reduce pain, nausea, vomiting, stress, and anxiety. Hypnosis is performed by experienced hypnotherapy practitioners. There are a variety of hypnosis techniques.
The study reviewed here looked at 200 women who had a breast biopsy or a lumpectomy. In some cases the lymph nodes also were removed. All of the women received some combination of local and intravenous anesthesia for their surgery. Half of the women had hypnosis just before surgery; the other half had a calming discussion ("empathic listening") just before surgery. The researchers found that the women who had hypnosis needed less anesthesia during surgery and had less pain and nausea after surgery. The women who had hypnosis also had less discomfort, fatigue, and emotional upset.
Hypnosis before surgery is not routinely available today, but it is available at some hospitals. If more research confirms the results of this study, hypnotherapy may become more available in time. If you're planning surgery and would like to consider preoperative hypnosis, talk to your surgeon. Your surgeon will be able to tell you whether hypnosis is available at your hospital and how to proceed.
During breast cancer treatment, complementary medicine techniques such as hypnosis can help you find physical, mental, and emotional balance while conventional medicine does its work. To learn more about some of the most common techniques, visit the breastcancer.org Complementary Medicine section.
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