As our two-year tenure as Co-Chairs of BSIO draws to a close, we reflect on how far we have all come as a community in the last two years. With the support of our wonderful Executive Committee and Council, as well as our administrative staff, we have made great progress and the momentum keeps growing.

Cancer patients and survivors not only experience the disease, but they also suffer from cancer treatment side effects that may last for years after treatment completion.

Pain is generally thought of as either acute or chronic and is a protective mind-body response to threats.

Hot flushes and night sweats are a problem experienced by many breast cancer survivors and are a clinical challenge to treat. Reported by over 80% of women taking tamoxifen, they are also associated with aromatase inhibitors. Causing distress and impacting quality of life, they may last the duration of adjuvant treatment and beyond.

On Behalf of the Executive Committee of the British Society for Integrative Oncology and our loyal members, we are delighted to host the IOUK22 on the 14th of May. The theme for IOUK22 is ‘Integrative Oncology – Emerging Directions and Bringing Evidence into Practice’ which reflects the increasing volume of worldwide clinical evidence for integrative oncology practice and the need to share knowledge with our clinicians on the new approaches to oncological care.

On World Cancer Day, the 4th of February 2022, the executive committee of the British Society for Integrative Oncology would like to express gratitude to the global organisational efforts to reduce the overall cancer burden and cancer mortality.

As we are closing on 2021, we would like to express our sincere commitment to our vision and goals, by continuing to be an externally facing organisation, partnering with other equally open-minded organisations, and working together towards our common goal of integration in oncology care.

Yoga is a time-honored mind-body therapy whose integration into standard cancer care can help global healthcare systems mind the gap in the delivery of equitable, evidence-informed, culturally sensitive, patient centered care across each stage of the cancer care continuum. The strong and growing science supporting yoga’s important role in cancer care validates what yogis have known for thousands of years – yoga is good medicine!

Mindfulness is the key to noticing what is going on so that we can start to respond to ourselves with kindness and self-compassion. This noticing comes from being embodied and we need to practise coming back to this ground of the body as we mostly live in our heads. When we are living in our heads, we are not fully present, our minds are either going over the past or thinking about the future or both.

Microbiome research in the cancer field now spans almost the entire spectrum of interest from primary cancer biology and understanding of disease mechanisms, through public health and cancer prevention, to treatment optimisation and patient activation.

Integration has now begun in earnest. The current of healthcare is really starting to change direction, and, hopefully within my lifetime, I can look forward to a time when to support integration will be to simply go with the flow.

Integrative oncology is or should be a personalised and rational integration of the best in conventional, psychological, lifestyle and complementary medicine. IO is whole-person oriented and addresses physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. Integrative oncology uses evidence-based healthcare principles, combining the best available research evidence, clinical expertise and patient values.

Integrative Oncology (IO) is a philosophy and practice of medicine that addresses the whole person and not just symptoms of disease. It supplements traditional cancer therapies and may work synergistically to improve patient outcomes from treatment.