A Multimodal Strategic Approach to Integrative Oncology

Abstract

  The term “integrative oncology” can mean particular things to different audiences. For the purposes of this article, I intend it to mean the simultaneous use of multiple anti-cancer strategies that can have a synergistic effect against the tumor, its microenvironment, and its propensity to metastasize. Thereby, having a maximum impact against the cancer with a minimum of side effects for the patient to endure. As noted in the references, this paper briefly describes the five prevailing evidence-based systematic approaches in use today. Each of these approaches has varying degrees of effectiveness which, in my experience, when clinically integrated, produces exponentially better efficacy, hence shifting progression-free survival into the possibility of increased overall survival and a durable remission. This paper is an attempt to offer some perspective of how to apply these disparate methodologies so that they may be more effectively integrated, resulting in consistently better clinical responses.