Palliative Care: The Benefits of Early Integration into the Oncology Care Plan
The topic of palliative care is no longer just an end-of-life discussion.
The topic of palliative care is no longer just an end-of-life discussion.
Varying definitions of the goals of hospice care and difficulty finding an appropriate program may confuse patients and their families.
Oncologists in a fee-for-service practice or paid a salary with productivity incentives were more likely to report their income would increase when they administer chemotherapy or growth factors than their salaried colleagues.
More research needed to understand impact of financial incentives on cost, quality of care.
Spiritual care—viewed by patients, nurses, and physicians as an important, appropriate, and beneficial component of end-of-life care—is infrequently provided by clinicians due primarily to lack of training, a study concluded in the Journal of Clinical Oncology online December 17.
In advanced cancer, parenteral hydration does not improve symptoms, QoL, or overall survival.
The proportion of US elderly patients dying of cancer who receive radiation therapy (RT) in the last month of life is low.
The American Thyroid Association’s independent Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Guidelines Taskforce published the first comprehensive guidelines for anaplastic thyroid cancer this month.
Early end-of-life discussions are associated with less aggressive care and greater use of hospice at the end of life.
This CME activity from ASCO 2012 describes the benefits of early palliative care in patients with metastatic cancer.