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).
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).
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.
Lorenzo Cohen, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses nonpharmacologic approaches to symptom control. Techniques such as acupuncture for managing pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, or yoga and meditation to help improve quality of life, can be safely integrated into oncology care.
Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, of Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, discusses the ways in which a dedicated palliative radiation consult service can improve the quality of palliative cancer care (Abstract 110).
