Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Patients with Malignancy

Abstract

Patients with cancer continue to have unmet palliative care needs. Concurrent palliative care is tailored to the needs of patients as well as their families to relieve suffering. Specialty palliative care referral is associated with improved symptom management, improved end-of-life quality, and higher family-rated satisfaction. Optimal timing for palliative care referral has not been determined. Barriers to palliative care referral include workforce limitations, provider attitudes and perceptions, and potential ethnic and racial disparities in access to palliative care. Future work should focus on novel, patient-centered approaches to identify and address unmet palliative care needs for patients living with cancer.

Keywords: Cancer; End-of-life (EOL); Hospice; Life-sustaining treatments (LST); Palliative care; Patient-centered and family-centered outcomes; Symptoms.