Abstract
This issue marks the anniversary of 15 years of publication of Integrative Cancer Therapies (ICT). We began in March 2002 with a new journal in a nascent field. Today we are a well-established publication featuring a global roster of authors and a worldwide readership. In 2016, the journal truly moved into the 21st century with its transition to online Open Access publication. This issue is the final paper issue of ICT. For the past year our articles have all been available online for free download, in addition to appearing in a print edition circulated to institutions. Beginning in 2017, ICT will join an increasing number of journals in saving trees as well as the energy costs of shipping paper journals by being accessible online only. Our free download policies make our research articles much more widely available to authors interested in using them as a basis for further research. Notably, this means a major increase in their availability to authors in developing countries for whom subscription fees in the past may have been unattainable. The impact of the Open Access policy on use of ICT articles has been tracked and communicated to us by our publisher, SAGE Publications. From January 2016 until the end of August 2016, ICT articles were downloaded 98 576 times in PDF and HTML formats. So, for those of you authoring articles, this suggests that your articles have likely been downloaded dozens of times. And we are enormously pleased that readers are finding ICT to be an important resource for research on integrative care modalities! Finally, we urge you to look at our website, http://ict.sagepub.com, in the near future, as we have recently added a number of new experts to our Editorial Board. Details of our Open Access policy are also available on the website, in case you are not yet familiar with them.
The contents of this issue provide an overview of the fields of interest that have been crucial to ICT over the years. In the clinical area, we begin with 2 review articles in the area of mind-body medicine, or what we prefer to call biobehavioral medicine. Jennifer Hulett and colleagues review spiritually based interventions and psychoneuroimmunology in breast cancer, while Yingchen Zeng and coauthors present a meta-analysis of studies on neuropsychological interventions targeting cognitive function in cancer survivors. The whole-person, or holistic, approach to cancer patients is crucial to true integrative care. Marie Polley and coauthors present a service evaluation of a clinic that features a whole-person approach. Supplements are an important part of integrative care, and Terence Golombick and colleagues discuss a supplemental intervention of curcumin with rice bran arabinoxylan and its effect on patients with B-cell lymphoid malignancies. Traditional medical systems are also an important element of integrative care, and this issue includes an article by Jongmin Kim and colleagues on Wheel Balance Therapy, an adaptation of traditional Korean medicine. Finally, therapies commonly called “alternative” that assume mechanisms of action quite different from conventional and other integrative therapies have always been part of the integrative, or “complementary and alternative,” community. We feature an article on anthroposophic medicine by Gunver Kienle, one on homeopathy by David Brulé, and one on mistletoe therapy by Maurice Orange in the current issue, in our ongoing effort to promote scientific evaluation of these therapies.
Among the preclinical articles appearing in this issue are 4 articles on phytochemicals. One article concerns activities of liposomes containing ursolic acid by Talita Rocha. Dhivya Sridaran and colleagues discuss anthocyanins and mitroxantrone, touching on the ongoing controversies surrounding the use of antioxidants and chemotherapy. Lei Bi and colleagues discuss tetramethylpyrazine, a constituent of natto, a fermented soy product, and its effect on hepatocellular carcinoma, and finally, Thamizhinigan Venkatesan and colleagues discuss the phytochemical deoxyrhapontigenin, a constituent of the herb Rhem undulatum. Pharmacology of extracts is another area in which ICT authors frequently publish, and this issue includes an article on antiangiogenic properties of the extract of Emilia sonchifolia George Gilcy. Other preclinical articles include an in vivo study of the effects of exercise on damage caused by doxorubicin to the thymus and a study of immune cells and their patterns of attack on prostate cancer cells. An in vivo study of protease and DNAse by Catalina Trejo-Becerril recalls our 2008 special issue on enzyme therapies and cancer, another type of alternative cancer therapy. Finally, an article by Nur Rizi Zamberi on kefir water and breast cancer cells recalls the long history of interest in foods and cancer in the integrative treatment world.
We hope you will join our enthusiastic celebration of the growth of ICT as a journal by either submitting an article to us in the near future or looking at the index on our website for articles relevant to your research to download. We look forward to another 15 years of publication as the field of integrative oncology continues to evolve.