Takeaway: Barrie Cassileth, PhD, a pioneer in the field of oncology massage research, passed away on February 26, 2022. Author Cal Cates offers their thoughts on Dr. Cassileth’s life and the lasting impact of her research.

Massage therapy lost a passionate and deeply wise friend on February 26 of this year when Barrie Cassileth, PhD, died at the age of 83 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Born in 1938, she was a pioneer in many ways, not the least of which was in her approach to caring for people affected by cancer. And if you wouldn’t call yourself an oncology massage therapist, that’s alright. Dr. Cassileth can still be one of your heroes.

I love her for so many reasons; one of those reasons is the research she conducted about the lack of relationship between a patient’s attitude and survival rate. While she would not dispute that a patient’s personal experience of their illness is affected by their attitude, she is famously quoted as saying, “For every anecdote about a cancer patient with a good attitude who lived, I can give you 200 about those who had good attitudes and died.” She wanted to know what really mattered—what would really help people affected by cancer live better, if not longer, and how she could make those factors, those treatments, and that experience a standard of care.

Before I go any further, you should know (if you don’t already) that Dr. Cassileth and her fellow researcher Andrew J. Vickers, PhD, conducted what is still the largest study of massage therapy in cancer patients.¹ The study tracked 1,290 patients who received massage therapy over three years as part of their cancer care. Symptom scores (pain, anxiety, fatigue, nausea, depression, and “other”) were reduced by approximately 50 percent, even for patients reporting high baseline scores. Outpatients did slightly better than inpatients and benefits persisted for outpatients beyond the 48-hour follow-up window. A study of this size and this impact has never been replicated in the oncology population with a massage therapy intervention. Even though this study was published in 2004, researchers break the rule about citing “old” research and include it among their citations in their publications to this day.

Dr. Cassileth was a compassionate realist who valued the intersection of science and humanity. She knew that conventional treatment saved lives, but also that sometimes it didn’t and that many times, even as it did, it brought with it an incredible burden of symptoms and side effects that could best be addressed by massage therapy, acupuncture, and other less-invasive supportive care. She also knew and argued that this approach was an essential aspect of optimal, ethical care.

Deeply curious and unflinchingly honest, Dr. Cassileth was a member of American Cancer Society’s Subcommittee on Questionable Methods of Cancer Management and an adviser to the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Alternative Medicine, now called the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. She drew a very clear distinction between “alternative” and “complementary,” arguing (and researching) ardently in support of massage therapy’s role in improving the experience of illness. She spoke out against diets and other so-called “natural cures” for cancer and other illnesses that purported to cleanse the body of “toxins,” saying, “It is malpractice on the part of public health services to offer an untested, unscientific method as a real alternative.”

Dr. Cassileth was the founder and longtime chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (where many massage therapists are on staff to this day!). She began arguing for what became known as “whole person” care in the 1970s and she never stopped working for a world where that was the only kind of care that existed, including the presence of massage therapists in that care.

In the early 1960s, she started a palliative care program at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center . . . long before palliative care was cool. (Oh, wait . . . it’s still not cool . . . but it’s getting there!) She founded and served as the president of the Society for Integrative Oncology and was also the director of the National Cancer Institute’s first training program in integrative oncology.

“It was always clear that patients and family members need more than excellent surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and all the new treatments,” Dr. Cassileth said. “Top-notch cancer care, including the now-accessible complementary modalities, is a vastly updated new world.” She made that world. She showed that it was possible, and she advocated for it her entire career.

If we’re looking for someone to induct into the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame, we need look no further than this physician and research champion who opened more doors than we may ever know for an improved experience of illness and for massage therapists to be a nonnegotiable aspect of that experience. Thank you, Dr. Cassileth.

Note

1. Barrie R. Cassileth and Andrew J. Vickers, “Massage Therapy for Symptom Control: Outcome Study at a Major Cancer Center,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 28, no. 3 (September 2004): 244–9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2003.12.016.