A considerable number of cancer patients use complementary medicine therapies in order to alleviate different symptoms such as pain, anxiety, and depression, occurring in connection with cancer. This paper explores the question to what extent massage therapies are able to reduce the amount of pain, anxiety, and depression. For this purpose, a systematic literature analysis was carried out in the electronic databases and specialist journals. There is already evidence that massage therapies can influence the symptoms of pain, anxiety, and depression in a positive way. 1. Introduction Cancer is the second most frequent cause of death after cardiovascular diseases, leading to unbearable and hardly controllable symptoms in 70 to 80% of the cases, especially when the healing phase is over and the therapy has to be continued with palliative intent [1]. Depending on the type of cancer and the stage of the disease, different physical and mental symptoms can be noted, with pain, anxiety, and depression playing a central role in the care and treatment of critically and terminally ill patients as the disease progresses [2]. In order to alleviate severe pain, opioid analgesics are administered because of their high efficacy and the absence of specific organ toxicity. Despite their good effectiveness, several side effects such as nausea and vomiting, drowsiness, confusion, respiratory depression, antitussive effect, urinary retention, itchiness, constipation, hyperalgesia, tolerance, and dependency can be noted [2, 3]. Due to the progression of cancer and the simultaneous presence of severe pain, there is an increased risk of mental complications such as anxiety and depression [2, 4]. Ten to 20% of oncological patients suffer from a depression [2]. Anxiety disorders can be found with a prevalence of 13 to 79% in this group of patients [5]. Anxiety is a multifactorial disorder which can be connected with other symptoms such as depression, and its pharmacological treatment mainly consists of benzodiazepines, antidepressants, neuroleptics, and opioids [1, 6, 7]. The side effects of these medications include ataxia, respiratory problems, amnesia, cardiac muscle fatigue, psychomotor and cognitive impairments, sleep disorders, and paradoxical reactions [1, 5]. As pharmacological treatment causes a number of side effects, oncological patients frequently turn to complementary medicine therapies as an adjunctive treatment to ease the symptoms [8]. Massage therapies are among the most frequently used complementary treatments. Their effectiveness with regard to the reduction of
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