What is integrative cancer care?
An integrative cancer care approach combines conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, immune therapy, and surgery with evidence-based complementary therapies, lifestyle changes, and psychological support.
The main goals are to broaden the patient’s treatment options, to reduce side effects of toxic therapies, to increase treatment efficacy by a multi-pronged approach, and to empower patients to engage in their own treatment process. There are enormous strengths to both, conventional treatments and complementary approaches.
While conventional cancer treatments are usually focused on removing or killing cancer cells (cyto reduction), an integrative cancer treatment approach sees the cancerous tumor as a mere symptom of an underlying cancer disease, for which the root causes must be addressed. This includes changing the “terrain”, in which the cancer was allowed to develop, removing facilitating circumstances and drivers of cancer growth, and improving weak cancer immunity and overall health of a cancer patient.
“Historically, it’s been an ‘either/or’ situation between conventional medicine and other approaches, which has often placed patients in an extremely difficult position at one of the most stressful points in their lives.”
Conventional cancer therapies focus on destroying cancer cells (‘seeds’) of primary tumor and metastases.
Integrative cancer treatments focus on both, the destruction of cancer cells (‘seeds’) and the fortification of the microenvironment or terrain (‘soil’) surrounding the cancerous lesions in the hope to create an unfavorable environment for cancer growth and heal the cancer disease on all levels – body, mind and spirit.
The “seed & soil” metaphor
When the cancer disease is represented by a plant, the cancerous cells can be seen as the ‘seeds’, and the surrounding tissue (also called micro-environment or terrain) as the ‘soil’. Conventional cancer therapies are preoccupied with removing the ‘seeds’, while the integrative approach to cancer looks after the ‘seed and soil’. Real success in cancer treatment can only be achieved with a combined approach, namely removing all seeds, and healing the soil at the same time.
The “seed and soil” hypothesis, referred to in the metaphor, was first published by Stephen Paget in 1889 and still is recognized and widely accepted today. Since more than a century, we know that certain tumors exhibit a predilection for metastases to specific organs. This organ-preference pattern of tumor metastases formation is the result of highly specific interactions between metastatic tumor cells (the seeds) and the tissue microenvironment or terrain, in which cancer grows (the soil).
During the last century, we have observed an explosion in our cancer knowledge base, including the latest technological progress in gene sequencing and molecular profiling. An extensive collection of experimental research and clinical data is now revealing valuable details about the interactions between cancer cells and their microenvironment, consisting of stromal cells and the extracellular matrix. We know today that the fate of a metastatic cancer cell depends on its ability to trigger various homeostatic mechanisms in this tissue microenvironment, thereby promoting cell growth, cell survival, invasion of microenvironment, angiogenesis, and clonal expansion to form a metastasis.
Understanding those interactions will help us to target important molecules and/or pathways in the crosstalk between cancer cells and their microenvironment and hopefully lead to better strategies for prevention and treatment of metastatic disease which remains the major cause of cancer-related death today.
“There is a lot you can achieve by working with the person as a whole rather than just focusing on the symptoms.”
Silvia Grisendi, Nutritional Therapist and Holistic Health Coach
Integrative Cancer Care – Our approach
Our Vision
We aim to reduce suffering from cancer by:
- Providing best diagnostic and treatment advice through a panel of renown international medical experts (Virtual International Tumor Board)
- Actively reaching out to as many cancer patients as possible to increase their chances for cure or better outcome regardless of location or socio-economic background
- Always keeping the patients’ integrity in the center of our holistic approach
- Dedicating our combined research- and clinical expertise to the welfare of our patients
Our Mission
Our core missions are:
- Advising cancer patients without prejudice on the most appropriate, most effective, evidence-based, diagnostics and treatments available for them
- Empowering cancer patients in the process of choosing the best approach to maintain the highest degree of wellness possible during all phases of their disease
- Collaborating as a team with our patients, their primary physicians, and other caretakers
- Providing our patients access to powerful, innovative and cost effective integrative therapies at our partner clinics and hospitals worldwide, always with honesty and transparency
Our Vision
We aim to reduce suffering from cancer by:
- Providing best diagnostic and treatment advice through a panel of renown international medical experts (Virtual International Tumor Board)
- Actively reaching out to as many cancer patients as possible to increase their chances for cure or better outcome regardless of location or socioeconomic background
- Always keeping the patients’ integrity in the center of our holistic approach
- Dedicating our combined research- and clinical expertise to the welfare of our patients
Our Mission
Our core missions are:
- Advising cancer patients without prejudice on the most appropriate, most effective, evidence-based, diagnostics and treatments available for them
- Empowering cancer patients in the process of choosing the best approach to maintain the highest degree of wellness possible during all phases of their disease
- Collaborating as a team with our patients and their primary physicians and cancer specialists
- Providing our patients access to powerful, innovative and cost effective integrative therapies at our partner clinics and hospitals worldwide, always with honesty and transparency
