From the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center press release:
Despite the many advances in cancer research, palliative care - the medical specialty focused on relieving debilitating symptoms or disease or treatment complications, caring for the dying and providing psychosocial care for the patient and family - continues to play a vital role in the continuum of cancer care, according to the study.
"We know that palliative care is most effective when incorporated early in oncology care," said David Hui, M.D., a fellow in M. D. Anderson's Department of Palliative Care and Symptom Management and lead author of the study. "We've recently seen a positive movement among a number of institutions and oncology and patient advocacy organizations pushing for increased palliative care services and early incorporation of such care, but we wanted to better understand how services and programs were structured and what barriers there might be to developing a more consistent approach."
What Hui and the research team from M. D. Anderson and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) found was that NCI-designated cancer centers are significantly more likely to have a comprehensive palliative care program than non NCI-designated centers, though most responding cancer center executives supported stronger integration and enhanced resources.
The questionnaire, which was sent to executives and program leaders at the 71 NCI-designated cancer centers and 71 non-NCI cancer centers, revealed that 98 percent of NCI cancer centers had a palliative care program compared to 78 percent of non-NCI cancer centers.
MedPage Today also noted that researchers looked at how the palliative care programs differed:
"Almost all cancer center executives, who play a critical role in defining the future of cancer care, agreed that a stronger integration between palliative and oncology care is necessary," the investigators observed.
They also felt that palliative care referral was not early enough, which reflects a lack of access and integration -- and which also limits the effectiveness of palliation.
The investigators identified the following as requirements:
- Education of health care professionals, patients, and families
- Encouragement of oncologists to make early referrals, and participate in family conferences and educational rounds
- Enhanced training of oncologists in palliative care core competencies
- Increased NCI research on integration models
- More substantial financial resources
They also noted that less than half of centers offered palliative outpatient services.
"Given that oncology care is provided predominantly on an outpatient basis, the relative lack of palliative care outpatient clinics is an important finding," they wrote.
About.com's Palliative Care blog and Pallimed have also posted about this study.
