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Publication - Palliative oncology and palliative care
Professor Peter Strang, Karolinska Institutet
"In this article (Palliative oncology and palliative care in Molecular Oncology ), at the invitation of the EACS, I review how palliative oncology, patient nutrition and treating cachexia, have undergone changes and improvements in cancer care and in geriatric oncology, as this is also a new opportunity for elderly patients. Cancer cachexia is central to palliative oncology, as it decreases patients´ quality of life, it is associated with poor responses to antitumor therapy, as well as with decreased survival.
I discuss the need to integrate oncology, palliative care, and cost of care early in patient treatment, as an integration might be beneficial to improve symptom control and to balance opportunities and risks associated with new treatments. Further I discuss aspects of personalized medicine and patient-reported outcomes (PROMs) in order to improve quality of life. Finally, I exemplify why translational research has a potential also to improve symptom control and I end by describing why equal access to palliative care should be a priority."