Gary Winzelberg, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine, Associate Director, UNC Palliative Care Program, Director, Hospice, and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program speaks about Let’s Target The Tough Stuff.
Dr. Gary Winzelberg, Palliative Medicine and Geriatrics Physician at the University of North Carolina, discusses questions surrounding end-of-life care in Bladder Cancer.
Link to JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY A S C O S P E C I A L A R T I C L E Integration of Palliative Care Into Standard Oncology Care: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline Update:
https://www.asco.org/practice-patients/guidelines/patient-and-survivor-care#/9671
The goal is to:
To provide evidence-based recommendations to oncology clinicians, patients, family and friend caregivers, and palliative care specialists to update the provisional clinical opinion (PCO) issued by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in 2012 on the integration of palliative care into standard oncology care for all cancer patients.
Methodologies:
To prepare an update, ASCO organized an Expert Panel of members of the ASCO Ad Hoc Palliative Care Expert Panel. The 2012 PCO was based on the National Cancer Institute Physicians Data Query’s analysis of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and further trials. The panel carried out an updated systematic evaluation in the 2012 PCO, looking for randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses, as well as secondary analyses of RCTs published between March 2010 and January 2016.
Outcomes:
The updated recommendation reflects changes in the evidence since the previous version. The update was informed by nine RCTs, one quasiexperimental trial, and five secondary analyses from RCTs in the 2012 PCO on providing palliative care services to cancer patients and/or their caregivers, including family caregivers.
Suggestions:
Early in the illness cycle, inpatients and outpatients with advanced cancer should get focused palliative care services in addition to aggressive treatment. Patients should be referred to interdisciplinary palliative care teams, and treatments may supplement existing programs. Palliative care services may be referred to family and friend caregivers of patients with early or late cancer by providers.