September 2018 JACM Special Focus Issue on Integrative Oncology

 Guest Editors:

Moshe Frenkel, MD Clinical Associate Professor, University of Texas Medical Branch; Director, Complementary and Integrative Medicine Unit, Institute of Oncology, Meir Medical Center, Israel; Former Medical Director of the Integrative Medicine Service in MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA

Lynda Balneaves, PhD, RN President of the Society for Integrative Oncology; Associate Professor, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada; Affiliate Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia

The past decade witnessed an increased interest in integrating complementary and integrative products, practices, and practitioners into cancer care. A growing number of patients and healthcare practitioners involved in oncological care find the integration of these services beneficial in improving patient quality of life and diminution of adverse effects of treatment. Increasingly, major cancer centers in the United States, Europe and Asia presently integrate, or are evaluating integration of, these therapies and providers in their usual care.

In September 2018, JACM will publish a Special Focus Issue on integrative oncology. We will combine clinical trials from around the world with invited clinical reviews and focused commentaries to make this JACM issue an enduring, referential document.

We invite your submissions! We seek quality trials integrating complementary and integrative medicine in cancer treatment - original research focused on clinical outcomes in palliative and supportive care. In alignment with JACM's ongoing editorial focus, we also seek explorations of translational issues: implementation research, cost analyses, and improvement research. Also in alignment with JACM's editorial focus, we make only rare exceptions for basic science submissions.

• Manuscript submission due date: April 15, 2018

• When submitting your paper, please select the “Integrative Oncology 2018 Special Issue” manuscript category to ensure it is considered for this special issue. 

• Original manuscripts should be no longer than 3,000 words, and Reviews should be no longer than 6,000 words (Systematic Reviews may be longer).  Title, abstract, acknowledgments, disclosures, references, and figure/table legends do not count toward the word limit.

Additional feature: As an additional feature in this JACM Special Focus Issue, we urge your submission of a 500-word commentary to reflect on next steps for integrative oncology: controversies; unusual experiences (not case reports); models of care; educational models; etc. We will select from those submitted a set that will be published together to capture the challenges and opportunities for this moment for the field.

If you have questions in this area, or ideas for other submissions that might strengthen the value of this special issue, please feel free to query us via JACM Editor-in-Chief John Weeks.