Palliative Care for Patients with Cancer Guideline Update

Dr. Debra Lundquist, PhD, RN and Dr. Arun Ghoshal, MD, MBBS discuss the new update to the palliative care for patients with cancer guideline developed by an interdisciplinary Expert Panel. They share the key updated recommendations on the most effective palliative care interventions, how these recommendations relate to other supportive care services, interventions for family caregivers, care partners, and communities, referrals to specialist palliative care services, and specific strategies for the integration of palliative care for patients with hematologic malignancies and those on early phase clinical trials. Dr. Lunquist and Dr. Ghoshal also discuss the contextual factors that affect equity at the intersection of palliative and oncology care, the impact of this guideline refresh for clinicians and patients, and future innovations in the field of palliative care. Read the full guideline update, “Palliative Care for Patients with Cancer: ASCO Guideline Update” at www.asco.org/supportive-care-guidelines.

TRANSCRIPT

This guideline, clinical tools, and resources are available at www.asco.org/supportive-care-guidelines. Read the full text of the guideline and review authors’ disclosures of potential conflicts of interest in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.24.00542

Brittany Harvey: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Guidelines podcast, one of ASCO’s podcasts delivering timely information to keep you up to date on the latest changes, challenges, and advances in oncology. You can find all the shows, including this one, at asco.org/podcasts.   

My name is Brittany Harvey, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Arun Ghoshal from Princess Margaret Cancer Center and Dr. Debra Lundquist from Massachusetts General Hospital, authors on, “Palliative Care for Patients with Cancer: ASCO Guideline Update.” Thank you for being here, Dr. Ghoshal and Dr. Lundquist.

Dr. Ghoshal: Thanks, Brittany. Thank you for having us here.

Dr. Lundquist: Yes, it's a pleasure.

Brittany Harvey: Great. Then before we discuss this guideline, I'd like to note that ASCO takes great care in the development of its guidelines and ensuring that the ASCO conflict of interest policy is followed for each guideline. The disclosures of potential conflicts of interest for the guideline panel, including Dr. Lundquist and Dr. Ghoshal, who have joined us here today, are available online with the publication of the guideline in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, which is linked in the show notes. 

So then, to start us off, Dr. Lundquist, what prompted this guideline update, and what is the scope of the current update for palliative care for patients with cancer?

Dr. Lundquist: Sure. So the goal of this refresh is really to provide oncology professionals with current recommendations regarding palliative care and assess which of the 2016 recommendations remain valid. The scope did increase to also include hematologic malignancies and participants of early phase clinical trials. In addition, this was an opportunity to reflect more recent evidence around the understanding of linguistic, geographic, ethical, and contextual factors that affect equity at the intersection of palliative and oncology care. This update also increased discussion about the inclusion of palliative care, as I mentioned earlier, for the enrollment of patients in clinical trials. And also, in terms of the equity piece, there is also a companion manuscript with the guidelines that focused on the health equity in the oncology palliative care s