The Tapping Evidence Base
Cancer & Serious Illness · Pain

Comparison of pain, cortisol, and IL6 levels pre and post SEFT in Stage III B cervical cancer patients

Hamidah, H., Rauf, S., Arifuddin, S., Musba, A. M., Prihantono, P., Pelupessy, N. U. et al. · Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention · 2025

Outcome studyPreliminary✓ Source-checked📍 Indonesia
In plain English. Cervical cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation practiced Spiritual EFT and had their pain, stress hormone (cortisol), and an inflammation marker (IL-6) measured before and after. All three dropped substantially. Because this was a one-group pre/post design with no control group, some of the change could reflect the chemoradiation treatment itself rather than SEFT alone.

What they found

Average pain severity fell from 4.5 to 1.6, cortisol from 632.9 to 305.3, and IL-6 from 260.1 to 106.7 after SEFT (p < 0.001 for cortisol; significant correlations between pain, cortisol, and IL-6, p<0.001).

How the study worked

Who took partStage III B cervical cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation at Gatot Soebroto Hospital, Jakarta
What they didParticipants received tapping and were measured before and after, without a separate comparison group.
Measured withNumeric Rating Scale (NRS) for pain, serum cortisol level, serum IL-6 level

⭐ Why this study matters

Cortisol and IL-6 are pulled from a blood draw in a hospital lab, not from how a patient describes her own mood — she can't wish those numbers down. Seeing both a stress hormone and an inflammatory marker fall alongside reported pain in women undergoing chemoradiation for advanced cervical cancer is a rare instance of tapping's effects showing up in blood chemistry during active, serious medical treatment, not just in a calm research volunteer.

💡 Where this could help

If this pattern is confirmed with a proper comparison group, it raises the possibility that patients enduring grueling cancer treatment could learn a free, self-administered technique to help manage pain and physiological stress load alongside their medical care, with no extra clinic visit and nothing to buy.

🔬 What to study next

The next step is tracking whether cortisol and IL-6 keep falling together across multiple rounds of chemoradiation rather than just once, and layering in additional immune markers like CRP or TNF-alpha plus a wearable to see whether calming the stress axis shows up as better heart-rate variability or sleep on the nights after treatment. It would also be worth testing whether patients who keep tapping between hospital visits show progressively lower cortisol at each subsequent blood draw, hinting at a cumulative, trainable effect rather than a one-time dip.

The full record

DesignOutcome study
PopulationStage III B cervical cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation at Gatot Soebroto Hospital, Jakarta
Outcome measuresNumeric Rating Scale (NRS) for pain, serum cortisol level, serum IL-6 level
JournalAsian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
Year2025
CountryIndonesia
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeStudy / trial
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Hamidah, H., Rauf, S., Arifuddin, S., Musba, A. M., Prihantono, P., Pelupessy, N. U., & Hidayati, E. (2025). Comparison of pain, cortisol, and IL6 levels pre and post SEFT in Stage III B cervical cancer patients. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention. https://doi.org/10.31557/apjcp.2025.26.2.625

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Cancer & Serious Illness · Pain

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Cancer & Serious Illness ✓ Outcome study WHAT THEY FOUND Average pain severity fell from 4.5 to 1.6,cortisol from 632.9 to 305.3, and IL-6 from260.1 to 106.7 after SEFT (p… Outcome study Hamidah · 2025 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com