INTEGRATED CANCER CARE MALAYSIA (ICCM) INFO SITE

ICCM was established to cater to an increasing demand as more patients are looking into ways beyond conventional treatment to overcome the cancer in their bodies. They are also looking for ways to manage/ or avoid the side effects that are often associated with the current cancer treatments.

Most cancer patients are desperately seeking the advice and counsel of oncologists who are well trained and credentialed, up to date with the science of cancer and its treatment, open-minded and non-judgmental. Our knowledge and experience in the field of integrative oncology allows us to guide you navigate the complex minefield of treatment options which can be confusing and oftentimes contradictory especially when presented by those who are zealous of promoting one form of treatment against the other.

At ICCM, we hope to provide you with the following:

Provide the critical bridging role between the conventional modalities and the complementary and alternative modalities
Helping you put together integrative treatment plans that use ‘healing strategies’ before, during and after conventional treatments.
Helping you navigate difficult situations and decision making about conventional treatment options.
Advising you about possible risks and benefits of alternative cancer treatments
Educating you about strategies for increasing efficacy and reducing side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy
Advising you regarding lifestyle strategies for reducing risks of recurrence
Teaching those at risk for cancer about lifestyle strategies for risk reduction
Helping you with incurable cancer to get the best palliative care, drawing on all therapeutic options, in line with your belief systems.
Helping terminal patients and families with issues around death and dying.

It is our hope that ICCM becomes an educational and a sounding board for patients to be exposed/learn about various effective treatments, how to better manage the side effects of conventional treatments and to distinguish false from positive claims. We will also help you navigate the not widely publicized and frequently difficult to learn about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) that leading clinicians from around the world have been using to help put cancer into remission. It could save your life.

How Are We Different?

At ICCM we include ideas and practices currently not in the scope of conventional; but neither rejects conventional therapies nor accepts alternative ones uncritically.

1. Vast Experience in Integrative Oncology - 35+ years

Dr. Vijae, the Chief Consultant Oncologist, brings over 35 years' experience in the forefront of conventional medicine. For the past 10 years he has incorporated healing therapies using complementary and nutritional/metabolic approaches as powerful adjuvants in his cancer care. This whole-person approach to treating cancer known as the DRV Protocol aims to restore you to a position where you can be in the driver’s seat in the challenge of overcoming the cancer. Using the DRV protocol has brought about vastly improved outcomes in our practice compared to a conventional only approach. Some of this data has been published and further research is ongoing.

2. Individualized treatment plan

Cancer diagnosis impacts you, your health, emotions, relationships, and your plans for the future. There are many questions and considerations - which are unique to you, and it can be very confusing to get one’s head around this complex issue and time is of the essence.

It is therefore important to find your answers and solutions to these dilemmas/ questions where this can be explained clearly in an easy-to-understand fashion to enable timely decision making.

At ICCM, your treatment plan will be individualized, taking into consideration your wishes after detailed counselling of all options and supporting the decision in a non-judgmental way. We use our best judgment, based on diligent study of medical literature, to propose therapy regimens for you that incorporate the most recent and promising findings in both conventional and CAM.

3. Holistic Approach

We provide a more holistic approach that can help patients heal not just their bodies but also their minds. We treat the root cause of why the symptoms occur. This type of treatment takes into account any co-existing conditions or mental health issues that may be present in addition to cancer diagnosis. We empower our patients with the understanding that their body’s ability to heal is the true path to health.

Treatment Philosophy

We emphasize on the following principles:

Natural healing power of the living being. We believe that the body has an innate capacity for healing, self-diagnosis, self-repair, regeneration, and adaptation to injury or loss. The primary goal of treatment should be to support, facilitate, and augment that innate capacity.
The importance of lifestyle. Health and disease result from interactions between genes/ cells and all aspects of lifestyle, including diet, physical activity, rest and sleep, etc. ( ie. Factors)
Role of Doctor-patient relationship. Therapeutic relationships that foster health and healing.
Conservative in practice, favoring less invasive and less drastic treatments over more invasive and drastic ones whenever possible, as appropriate to the circumstances of illness. The proven conventional treatments are always offered as the first option.

Patient's Choice - We will make every effort to convey the philosophies behind the above approaches and the evidence base for them; their strengths and weaknesses, their appropriateness or inappropriateness in specific health conditions. Our specialist will spend time with individual patient to inform him/her of the potential benefits and risks associated with the protocols recommended, and ultimately it is the patient who decides on the protocol to be implemented.

Adhering to the highest standards of professionalism - We are committed to staying current with the latest healthcare practices in conventional, complementary as well as alternative cancer care and management and at all times adhering to the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and personal responsibility.

Inspire Hope - Hope is one of the greatest allies supporting quality of life. It is a precious commodity, often hard to define, but is very important to keep alive. We are committed to inspire hope and contribute to our patient's overall health and well-being by providing the best care through integrated clinical practice, education and research.

The needs of the patient come first - It is our firm conviction that the needs of the patient come first, and that the quality of treatment is determined not only by the effectiveness of the therapy but also by the quality of the patient's life during and after the treatment. We look forward to the advent of new and better treatments. We practice safe medicine, the kind that patients want, the kind that produces the best possible outcome.