[Objective]The purpose of this study is to evaluate an effect of electroacupuncture therapy on low back pain of collegiate athletes.
[Methods]Subjects were 28 collegiate athletes with low back pain who gave informed consent. They consulted a medical doctor beforehand. The electroacupuncture therapy was performed as acupuncture. The evaluation items were as follows:Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) which expresses the state of the pain (Pain-VAS), VAS which shows a training state (Training-VAS), five phases of evaluations to show a training state, pain at the time of the trunk movements, Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RDQ), and Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) score. The correlation of each item was estimated.
[Results]The chief complaint of 27 people was low back pain, and one person had pain of the low back and the lower extremities. In the diagnosis, 16 people had non-specific low back pain, 5people had lumbar vertebrae discopathy, and 3had a lumber vertebrae herniated disk. As a result of acupuncture, the training-VAS and five phases of evaluations to show the training state and JOA score were significantly improved. However, as for the pain-VAS and pain at the time of trunk movements and RDQ, a significant difference was not accepted.
[Conclusion]Training-VAS is useful for measuring the outcome of an athlete with low back pain. It is important that athletes with low back pain evaluate their training.

The patient was a 73-year-old woman. She had been treated for squamous cell carcinoma of the lung (cT3N3M0, Stage IIIC) at our department. The patient had low back pain due to retroperitoneal lymph node metastasis; in June 2022, this was exacerbated as lung cancer progressed. She had difficulty in body movements due to edema in both lower limbs, in addition to the pain. Consequently, she was urgently admitted on July 8 and received radiotherapy (30 Gy/10 fractions) for retroperitoneal lymph node metastasis. She was being given tapentadol at a dose of 200 mg/day for relief of her pain. However, she was switched to fentanyl patch at a dose of 1200 µg/day during her hospitalization, which resulted in relief of low back pain. The underlying disease causing the edema was investigated. Based on physical and laboratory findings and medical history, lymphedema associated with retroperitoneal lymph node metastases was diagnosed. On day 31 of hospitalization, the patient was allowed to be temporarily discharged from the hospital because the edema had improved and the activity of daily living around the bed had increased. Treatment methods for lymphedema associated with lymph node metastasis have not been established, but the efficacy of radiotherapy has been reported. We have herein reported a case of lymphedema that was improved by radiotherapy after it was differentiated from other diagnoses.