Integrative Oncology and Quality of Life Department
Since a few decades ago, the rapid and comprehensive global approach of mankind has turned to complementary and alternative medicine. “Alternative Medicine” term was formed around 1970, but it did not last long and in the early 1990s, the view and revolutionary movement were modified, and then “Complementary Medicine” or “Complementary Alternative Medicine” term was defined, a logical and balanced view which gradually came to be considered as a comprehensive school (CAM). The name of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), having been created at NIH office in October 1998, was changed to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in 2004, indicating the change of global approach toward integrative medicine in which the combination of nontraditional treatment modalities with more conventional views and therapeutic approaches were used to enhance the quality of life of patients.
Regarding the increasing incidence of cancers, especially breast cancer, and life expectancy, attributable to improvement in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to breast cancer, improving the quality of life of cancer patients has become the focus of attention in recent years. Cancer patients and their family members need special attention from the time of diagnosis up to the end or after the end of treatment. Hence, Breast Cancer Research Center, the first scientific research center, has established Research Group on Quality of Life of Cancer Patients and Rehabilitation Clinics to help get the patients back to normal life after treatment completion.
Research groups are divided into two groups: quality of life of cancer patients and integrative medicine.
Integrative Oncology and Quality of Life Department is subdivided into two groups: