Study seeks to reduce common cancer side effect: national trial

Numbness, tingling, pins and needles, even pain in hands and feet are all symptoms of a common but little-researched side effect of cancer chemotherapy that can vastly affect survivors’ quality of life.

  • 60% of chemotherapy patients have peripheral neuropathy symptoms.
  • Symptoms vary in severity and include numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and feet.
  • Severe symptoms can lead to stumbling, inability to hold a cup.
  • Study seeks volunteers to trial home-based therapies to reduce or stop peripheral neuropathy.

Since 2019, to help cancer survivors self-manage and reduce the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy (damage to sensory nerves in hands and feet), QUT’s Distinguished Professor Patsy Yates has called for study participants who have completed chemotherapy treatment within the past three months to three years.

Professor Yates, who leads the NHMRC-funded study, said, so far, study participants had reported a variety of mild to severe symptoms after chemotherapy.

Read more about the Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Clinical (CIPN) Trial.