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Background: Early integration of palliative care into oncology care has shown positive effects on patient symptoms and quality of life. It may also reduce health care costs. However given the heterogeneity of settings and interventions and the lack of information on the minimally effective dose for influencing care utilisation and costs, it remains uncertain whether early palliative care reduces costs., Objectives: We sought to determine whether an early palliative care intervention integrated in usual oncology care in a Swiss hospital setting reduced utilisation and costs of health care in the last month of life when compared with usual oncology care alone., Methods: We performed a cost-consequences analysis alongside a multicentre trial. We extracted costs from administrative health insurance data and health care utilisation from family caregiver surveys to compare two study arms: usual oncology care and usual oncology care plus the palliative care intervention. The intervention consisted of a single-structured, multiprofessional conversation with the patient about symptoms, end-of-life decisions, network building and support for carers (SENS). The early palliative care intervention was performed within 16 weeks of the diagnosis of a tumour stage not amenable or responsive to curative treatment., Results: We included 58 participants with advanced cancer in our economic evaluation study. Median overall health care costs in the last month of life were 7892 Swiss Francs (CHF) (interquartile range: CHF 5637-13,489) in the intervention arm and CHF 8492 [CHF 5411-12,012] in the control arm. The average total intervention treatment cost CHF 380 per patient. Integrating an early palliative care intervention into usual oncology care showed no significant difference in health care utilisation or overall health care costs between intervention and control arms (p = 0.98)., Conclusion: Although early palliative care is often presented as a cost-reducing care service, we could not show a significant effect of the SENS intervention on health care utilisation and costs in the last month of life. However, it may be that the intervention was not intensive enough, the timeframe too short or the study population too small for measurable effects. Patients appreciated the intervention. Single-structured early palliative care interventions are easy to implement in clinical practice and present low treatment costs. Further research about the economic impact of early palliative care should focus on extracting large, detailed cost databases showing potential shifts in cost and cost-effectiveness., Clinical Trials: gov Identifier: NCT01983956.

Background: International oncology societies recommend early palliative care. Specific models to integrate early palliative care efficiently into clinical practice are debated. The authors designed a study to look at the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of an early palliative care intervention in oncological care to decrease stress and improve quality of life., Aims: To compare a single structured early palliative care intervention added to a usual oncology care in terms of distress and health-related quality of life at baseline compared to 6 months after enrollment., Design: This multicenter randomized controlled trial (NCT01983956) enrolled adult patients with advanced cancer. Participants were either randomly assigned to usual oncology care alone or usual care plus a structured early palliative care intervention., Setting/participants: One hundred fifty adult patients with a variety of advanced cancer diagnoses were randomized. Seventy-four participants were in the intervention and 76 participants in the control group. The primary outcome was the change in patient distress assessed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network distress thermometer at 6 months. Health-related quality of life, the secondary outcome, was assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General Questionnaire., Results: The results showed no significant effect of the early palliative care intervention neither on patient distress nor on health-related quality of life., Conclusion: The addition of an early intervention to usual care for patients with advanced cancer did not improve distress or quality of life. Thus, patients may need more intensive early palliative care with continuous professional support to identify and address their palliative needs early.

Background: Intervention trials confirm that patients with advanced cancer receiving early palliative care experience a better quality of life and show improved knowledge about and use of palliative care services. To involve patients in future health-care decisions, health professionals should understand patients' perspectives. However, little is known about how patients' experience such interventions., Aim: To explore advanced cancer patients' experiences with a structured early palliative care intervention, its acceptability and impact on the patients' life including influencing factors., Design: Qualitative content analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews., Setting/participants: Patients with various advanced cancer diagnoses were enrolled in a multicenter randomized controlled trial (NCT01983956), which investigated the impact of "Symptoms, End-of-life decisions, Network, Support," a structured early palliative care intervention, on distress. Of these, 20 patients who underwent the intervention participated in this study., Results: Participants received the intervention well and gained a better understanding of their personal situation. Patients reported that the intervention can feel "confronting" but with the right timing it can be confirming and facilitate family conversations. Patients' personal background and the intervention timing within their personal disease trajectory influenced their emotional and cognitive experiences; it also impacted their understanding of palliative care and triggered actions toward future care planning., Conclusion: Early palliative care interventions like "Symptoms, End-of-life decisions, Network, Support" may provoke emotions and feel "confrontational" often because this is the first time when issues about one's end of life are openly discussed; yet, advanced cancer patients found it beneficial and felt it should be incorporated into routine care.

Background: This study was performed to evaluate the outcome after hemostatic radiotherapy (RT) of significant bleeding in incurable cancer patients., Methods: Patients treated by hemostatic RT between November 2006 and February 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. Bleeding was assessed according to the World Health Organization (WHO) scale (grade 0 = no bleeding, 1 = petechial bleeding, 2 = clinically significant bleeding, 3 = bleeding requiring transfusion, 4 = bleeding associated with fatality). The primary endpoint was bleeding at the end of RT. Key secondary endpoints included overall survival (OS) and acute toxicity. The bleeding score before and after RT were compared using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Time to event endpoints were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method., Results: Overall 62 patients were analyzed including 1 patient whose benign cause of bleeding was pseudomyxoma peritonei. Median age was 66 (range, 37-93) years. Before RT, bleeding was graded as 2 and 3 in 24 (39%) and 38 (61%) patients, respectively. A median dose of 20 (range, 5-45) Gy of hemostatic RT was applied to the bleeding site. At the end of RT, there was a statistically significant difference in bleeding (p < 0.001); it was graded as 0 ( n = 39), 1 ( n = 12), 2 ( n = 6), 3 ( n = 4) and 4 (n = 1). With a median follow-up of 19.3 (range, 0.3-19.3) months, the 6-month OS rate was 43%. Forty patients died (65%); 5 due to bleeding. No grade 3 or above acute toxicity was observed., Conclusions: Hemostatic RT seems to be a safe and effective treatment for clinically and statistically significantly reducing bleeding in incurable cancer patients.

Assessment in Palliative Care is a broad field trying to integrate various dimensions from physical, psychological, social and spiritual problems and suffering. Medical diagnosis alone may not successfully reflect this multidimensional aspects, as it may be true for nursing diagnosis. In addition, any assessment procedures in palliative care needs a) to be performed in an interprofessional way, i.e. integrating various perspectives, b) to avoid additional burden for the patient, and c) to allow repetitive longitudinal follow up in order to assess the outcomes of interventions. Derived from WHO definition of Palliative Care from 2002 we developed at our centre the problem- rather than diagnosis based SENS-Model and started its clinical implementation. This new tool to structure narratives from patients may facilitate not only to prioritize the various problems, but also to define tasks and responsibilities within the team including the evaluation of the intended benefit. Apart, SENS may help to avoid medicalisation and focus on pathological rather then salutogenetic interpretation. By this, SENS may develop towards a first problem - based ";classification and assessment system" in palliative care, possibly valuable for other chronic diseases and its multidimensional problems, too.