Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. A number of claims have been made for these treatments including reduction of pain, anxiety, depression, and stress.
Other studies have not shown these benefits. To evaluate the effects of massage with or without aromatherapy on pain and other symptoms associated with cancer. We also searched clinical trial registries for ongoing studies. Randomised controlled studies RCTs reporting the effects of aromatherapy or massage therapy, or both, in people with cancer of any age. We applied no language restrictions. Comparators were massage using carrier oil only versus no massage, massage with aromatherapy using carrier oil plus essential oils versus no massage, and massage with aromatherapy using carrier oil plus essential oils versus massage without aromatherapy using carrier oil only.
At least two review authors selected studies, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data relating to pain and other symptoms associated with cancer, using standardised forms. We included 19 studies 21 reports of very low quality evidence with a total of participants. Thirteen studies 14 reports, participants compared massage with no massage. Six studies seven reports, participants compared aromatherapy massage with no massage. Two studies participants compared massage with aromatherapy and massage without aromatherapy.
Fourteen studies had a high risk of bias related to sample size and 15 studies had a low risk of bias for blinding the outcome assessment.
We judged the studies to be at unclear risk of bias overall. Our primary outcomes were pain and psychological symptoms. Two studies reported physical distress, rash, and general malaise as adverse events. The remaining 17 studies did not report adverse events. We downgraded the GRADE quality of evidence for all outcomes to very low because of observed imprecision, indirectness, imbalance between groups in many studies, and limitations of study design.
