Over the past 20 years, many novel cancer therapies have been developed, adopted, and disseminated. Unfortunately, interventions to improve relief from cancer-associated symptoms remain uninspiring. Pain is one of the most problematic symptoms experienced by more than 70% of patients with cancer, and it is inadequately controlled for more than 50% of these patients. 1 Opioids are the current mainstay for relief, but adverse events are common. Beleaguered by the opioid epidemic and with tightening pressure on prescribing regulations, there is an urgent need to develop and promote better and safer analgesia and other nonpharmacologic approaches to manage the physical, emotional, and existential symptoms that accompany cancer. Integrative oncology can fill this unmet need, but lack of coverage by payers remains a major barrier to implementation. 2

These challenges have prompted ASCO and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) to issue updated guidelines. 3, 4 The NCCN 2021 guidelines specifically recommend optimizing integrative therapies, which include a variety of approaches such as mindfulness-based stressed reduction, massage, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, acupuncture, and therapeutic-based exercise programs, to treat cancer-associated symptoms. Randomized trials have demonstrated that specific integrative interventions can improve cancer pain and other cancer-related symptoms. 2, 5-8 Acupuncture, for example, combined with pharmacotherapy, results in quicker relief of pain, longer pain remission, and improved quality of life in patients suffering from cancer pain. 8, 9 It has also been shown to help reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, 10 xerostomia, 11 aromatase inhibitor–induced arthralgias, 12 hot flashes, 13 and dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer. 14, 15