Integrative Medicine in Neuro-oncology Virtual Group Visits

Drs Kathrin LaFaver and Soma Sengupta discuss how to set up group visits to address a more integrative approach to neuro-oncology.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/integrative-medicine-neuro-oncology-virtual-group-visits-2024a1000hss?src=soc_yt

-- TRANSCRIPT --
Kathrin LaFaver, MD: Hello and welcome, on behalf of Medscape. I am Dr Kathrin LaFaver, a neurologist and lifestyle medicine specialist in Saratoga Springs, New York.

I have the great pleasure of talking with Dr Soma Sengupta today, a clinical professor of neurology, who is also the division chief of neuro-oncology and vice chair of research for the Department of Neurosurgery at University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill.

Welcome, Dr Sengupta.

Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, MBA: Thank you, Dr LaFaver. It's a pleasure to be here today.

LaFaver: The topic we're going to talk about today is integrative medicine in neuro-oncology. To start us off, I'm very interested to hear more about where your interest in integrative medicine came from and also about the training you did. I understand you've completed a fellowship in integrative medicine.

Integrative Medicine Fellowship

Sengupta: I'll start with the fellowship first and then come full circle to my interests. I did my fellowship in integrative medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine; that's linked to the University of Arizona. I became very interested in integrative oncology through my training.

Dr Donald Abrams at UCSF and Dr Lise Alschuler at the University of Arizona and the Andrew Weil Center, really got me hooked into the area. I was very taken with the approaches to improve the quality of life of cancer patients.

The reason I became interested as a neuro-oncologist is that I often didn't like the approach that I was trained to do, which was you give chemotherapy, you take care of their day-to-day chemotherapy needs, and monitor the patient. Then you didn't really offer anything else in terms of lifestyle advice.

I went to clinic as a fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital–Dana-Farber Cancer Institute–and Brigham and Women's Hospital Neuro-Oncology Fellowship Program. I noticed that one of my mentors, Dr David Reardon, would talk about nutrition and exercise with his patients. I thought, wow, this is an interesting approach. I noticed that patients were always asking for that additional angle.

What if I took this supplement? What if I did this herb? What if I did this exercise? There were many what-if-I-dids. As a clinician scientist, I learned very early on that you should never disregard data points. If patients were asking for these alternative approaches, I needed to be educated in them.

I felt that the best way to be educated was to embark on a fellowship. I was very fortunate that the Schiff Foundation, when I was at the University of Cincinnati, paid for me to do the fellowship in integrative medicine.

Learning from all my mentors at the Andrew Weil Integrative Medicine Center, including the ones I mentioned, Dr Alschuler and Dr Abrams, was just a life-changing experience. Of course, Andrew Weil himself is such a legend in the sphere of integrative medicine and the way mindfulness, nutrition, and supplements can really impact the way that people can live. I applied it to the brain tumor and neuro-oncology space.

LaFaver: Wonderful. That's a good segue. Why don't you tell us more about the program you have started for your patients with brain tumors?

Virtual Group Visits

Sengupta: Dr Abrams let me sit in on his integrative medicine group visits in the integrative oncology setting. At the University of North Carolina, I offer integrative oncology virtual group visits that are billed, but at a low tier, and each week is a different theme.

I have a 5-week series and up to 12 patients can sign up. Each week, I have a different expert with me. For example, the current series that I'll be running will have a pharmacist who's integrative medicine trained and will be there to discuss herbs and supplements.

Then, we have a break-off session after the talk as to what kind of supplements might be helpful, and if patients have one-to-one questions, we can utilize the breakout rooms. Often, my groups of patients have not wanted this. They've been more than willing to discuss things openly.

The other week is going to be on mindfulness. We have a mindfulness expert, who's funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the area, talking about this. Then we will break away and do mindfulness exercises and also talk about ways to implement mindfulness in each patient's lifestyle.

Transcript in its entirety can be found by clicking here:
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/integrative-medicine-neuro-oncology-virtual-group-visits-2024a1000hss?src=soc_yt