COMBINATION THERAPY

Akiko Negishi is no ordinary mountain climber. Fifteen years ago doctors removed a malignant lymphatic tumor from her abdomen and along with it her stomach, gall bladder and part of her spleen and pancreas. During her treatment after the operation, she went to Dr. Jinro Itami, who was convinced that cancer patients can better cope with their fear and anxiety and stimulate the immune system when working to achieve specific goals. After a year of training, Negishi climbed to the summit of Mount Fuji. "I said to myself I would live totally different from then on," she says. Since then, she's climbed 20 mountains in Japan, and her cancer hasn't come back. "At present," she says, "I feel good."

These days tens of thousands of cancer patients are using mind-body practices like conscious relaxation, talk therapy, music therapy, visualization, tai chi, qigong and prayer to help them deal with their disease. Eighty percent of cancer patients report using some kind of complementary medicine, a category that includes mind-body techniques as well as nutritional supplements and other holistic approaches. And no wonder. Scientists have found that mind-body practices help patients sleep better and cope with the pain, anxiety and depression often associated with traditional cancer treatments. Recent research has shown that mind-body practices can subtly enhance a cancer patient's immune system, too.

Among doctors, skepticism is giving way to support. For decades data-driven oncologists ignored the largely untested mind-body practices. But in the last few years, "patients have made it clear that they were eager to try it. And oncologists began looking for ways to combine it with the best medicine possible," says Dr. Barrie Cassileth, chief of integrative medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Many cancer treatment centers now offer complementary-medicine programs, mostly in the form of nutritional counseling, support groups and instruction in guided imagery. Says Lorenzo Cohen, head of integrative medicine at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston: "In the not-so-distant future, oncologists will send patients to learn tai chi or yoga the way cardiac specialists now send patients to stress-management courses after they've had a heart attack."

Although mind-body techniques haven't been shown to affect survival rates, they do improve patients' attitudes. In a five-year study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2001, doctors at the University of Toronto found that breast-cancer patients who attended weekly support groups and talk therapy in addition to undergoing conventional chemotherapy reported much less anxiety and pain than patients who went through standard treatment without such help. Conscious relaxation and meditation can counteract stress by lowering heart rate and blood pressure, and reducing levels of the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine in the bloodstream. They also enhance immune function. In a study of 227 breast-cancer patients published in September, researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center found that the patients who received regular relaxation training and attended therapy and a support group had higher T-cell function than those who didn't participate in mind-body training. Along with lifesaving drugs, a little serenity may be exactly what the doctor ordered.

WITH HIDEKO TAKAYAMA IN TOKYO

© 2004