Early Palliative Care in Advanced Lung Cancer

Abstract

During the last decade, there has been significant growth of palliative care (PC) services and increasing international awareness of the role of PC for patients with advanced illness and their caregivers.^1,2 Research has demonstrated that PC is associated with better quality of life and mood, improved symptom control, more appropriate health resource use, increased patient and caregiver satisfaction, health care savings, and possibly even survival.^3-9 The current World Health Organization's definition of PC is “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.”¹⁰ Thus, PC is becoming a more established component of cancer care and is poised to provide an integral role in comprehensive cancer care for patients with advanced cancer.