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.
