Anthony L. Back, MD, of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, summarizes a general session on best practices and novel tools for enhancing communication between patients and oncology providers (Abstracts 8,9, 39).
Judith Paice, PhD, RN, of Northwestern University, reviews the current principles on assessing and treating neuropathic pain in cancer.
Betty Ferrell, PhD, RN, of City of Hope, discusses two papers that look at an important issue from different perspectives: depression and anxiety among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer, and the link between oncologists’ dispositional affect and depressive symptoms in their patients with metastatic cancer (Abstracts 224, 214).
Eduardo Bruera, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses exciting developments in the assessment and management of cachexia, as well as a number of emerging pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions (Abstract 67).
Kathleen Foley, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the challenges of integrating palliative care in areas without sufficient resources or health-care infrastructure.
Diane Portman, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses clinical pathways that embed palliative care along the spectrum of care for a variety of cancer disease states.
