Judith Lacey, Head of Supportive Care and Integrative Oncology at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, shared on LinkedIn:
“What a wonderful way to start day 3 of the Society for Integrative Oncology Conference in Detroit – presenting the MASCC–SIO Plenary on Symptom Clusters in Supportive Cancer Care.
It was a real privilege to share the plenary with Alexandre Chan, and AProf Hannah Wardill, bringing together three complementary perspectives on an increasingly important area of supportive cancer care: how we understand, treat and implement care for complex symptom clusters.
We explored the journey from analysis to implementation, including:
- The gut microbiome as a potential central hub in cancer treatment-associated symptom clusters – beautifully presented by Hannah Wardill.
- Acupuncture and neuropsychological symptom clusters in AYA with cancer and cancer survivors, including the emerging EAST trial – presented by Alex Chan.
- And I focused then on the real-world clinical perspective – how we actually see the person sitting in front of us, rather than treating symptoms in isolation, and how a whole-person, multimodal approach can help us understand and respond to interconnected symptom clusters. Highlighting some of our research and how it informs care.
For me, this is at the heart of supportive and integrative oncology: the lens through which we see the whole person.
Patients rarely experience fatigue, pain, sleep disturbance, cognitive changes, anxiety, neuropathy or gastrointestinal symptoms as separate entities.
They experience themselves – with multiple symptoms interacting within the context of their cancer, treatment, biology, lifestyle and lived experience.
An exciting next step is understanding the mechanisms underlying these clusters – whether through the gut microbiome, the endocannabinoid system or other biological pathways – and identifying biomarkers that can help us understand which interventions might help which patients.
This is where multidisciplinary integrative-oncology and supportive cancer care intersect: bringing together biology, clinical experience and whole-person care: translating what we learn into approaches that are meaningful and implementable in the real world.
A huge thank you to Ting Bao, the SIO2026 conference organising team for including this plenary in the program – and for giving us the opportunity to open the final morning of the conference with this important conversation.
It was a wonderful way to continue to strengthen the ties between The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) and SIO.
And what a pleasure to finish the conference surrounded by colleagues and friends from around the world.”
