Supportive care for toxicities arising from cancer treatment

In cancer care, a variety of interventions, including medications and procedures, are used to alleviate toxicities arising from primary cancer treatments, such as surgery, anticancer drug treatment, and radiation therapy. These toxicities include gastrointestinal symptoms, skin disorders, and other treatment-related adverse effects. Such interventions are generally referred to as supportive care. However, not all supportive care interventions are necessarily supported by sufficient scientific evidence.

The Supportive Care Group actively supports interventional research in cancer supportive care with the aim of establishing standard treatments based on high-quality clinical research.

Palliative care for symptoms arising from cancer

A variety of medications, procedures, and forms of care are provided as palliative care to relieve distressing symptoms arising from the disease itself in patients with cancer. However, many of these interventions are based largely on clinical experience and lack sufficient scientific evidence regarding their safety and efficacy. Therefore, establishing standard treatments based on high-quality clinical research is also considered an important international priority in palliative care.

The Palliative Care Group actively supports interventional research, particularly research on treatments and care for various distressing symptoms arising from the disease itself.

Psychosocial and Survivorship Care

Psychosocial and survivorship care covers all forms of support related to human behavior. This includes support for cancer survivors, their families, healthcare and support professionals, and society as a whole. In addition to clinical research on support methods for individual survivors, we also consider social interventions that target the community as a whole. Here, “behavior” includes people’s knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes.

A wide range of modalities are considered as potential interventions, including the delivery of medical care and support (e.g., research on psychosocial approaches and methods of care delivery), communication between patients and healthcare professionals, decision-making support, nursing and caregiving, rehabilitation, food and nutrition, employment, physical activity, psychotherapy, and psychological experiments.

Outcomes are examined from various perspectives, including health outcomes such as emotional distress, suicide, physical symptoms, and quality of life (QOL); behavioral indicators such as patient safety, biological responses, response counts, and implementation rates; and patient-reported outcomes (PROs), such as self-efficacy and perceived adjustment.

The Psychosocial and Survivorship Care Group actively supports interventional research that can contribute to innovations in medical care and support that address people’s psychological and emotional well-being.

Last update: September 7, 2026