Self-administered acupressure, learned through a mobile app, offers a possible low-cost option for managing cancer-related fatigue (CRF) in women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, suggests an American randomised trial.
The most recent American Society of Clinical Oncology-Society for Integrative Oncology guidelines, recommend self-acupressure for post-treatment CRF. Acupressure studies for CRF however have been almost exclusively in breast cancer survivors, and may not be applicable to ovarian cancer survivors. Also, previous research used acupressure educators to teach women acupressure, and this approach creates barriers to accessibility and scalability. A mobile app could help to address this.
A team therefore conducted a randomised trial comparing true self-acupressure with sham self-acupressure, both taught via a mobile app, and usual care to determine whether this is an intervention that decreases CRF in ovarian cancer survivors. Participants were recruited through cancer surveillance programmes and survivor groups. All had initiated surgery or chemotherapy at least four weeks prior to enrollment. The acupressure app was installed on computer tablets, and both the tablet and an acupressure device were sent to participants along with instructions on their use.
Participants in the true acupressure group were told to perform daily self-acupressure on five acupoints for 3 minutes per point for 27 minutes daily for 6 weeks. The sham acupressure group were given the same instructions for five non-therapeutic points in the same regions of the body. All three groups continued to receive usual care. A total of 137 women completed the six week course.
At week 6, the portion of women no longer clinically fatigued was 58% in the true acupressure group, 51% in the sham group, and 18% in the usual care group. The relative benefit of true acupressure over usual care, persisted at 24 weeks. A clinically meaningful improvement in quality of life was also observed in the true acupressure group compared with the usual care group.
The team concludes that this approach is effective, inexpensive and safe. They add that sham acupressure had smaller but meaningful impacts on CRF. Given that the sham acupoints were located in the same region of the body as the true acupoints and considering that acupressure impacts peripheral sensory nerves and ultimately central nervous system functioning, it is possible that the sham points also stimulated similar peripheral nerves to the true acupressure points. This could have led to similar impacts on CRF.
(Self-Acupressure for Fatigue in Patients Surviving Ovarian Cancer – A Randomized Clinical Trial. Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, 5 February 2026.)
