Barrie R. Cassileth, whose efforts to bring treatments like acupuncture and massage into mainstream cancer care helped countless patients weather the pain of chemotherapy, radiation and terminal illness, died Feb. 26 at an assisted-living home in Beverly Hills, CA. She was 83.

Dr. Cassileth founded the integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. What started with one woman in a small office grew to a staff of about 60 people, with its own four-story building. Today, thousands of cancer patients at Sloan Kettering, and in similar programs nationwide, benefit from what she called complementary care — the result, Dr. Cassileth always insisted, of advances in conventional medical care.

“Quality of life has only become an issue since enough patients have been around long enough to worry about quality of life,” she told The Washington Post in 2000.”