Cancer Research Will Focus on Dying Patients : ABCD Supports National Cancer Policy Board Recommendations on Research for End of Life Care
by Janice Lynch
All people suffering from serious and fatal disease will benefit from better pain and symptom management.
Washington, DC - For the first time, America’s cancer experts are calling for Federal funds to study best practices in caring for dying cancer patients. Improving care for this group of patients will help any person nearing the end of life.
“Progress in treating cancer patients has often led to better care for people with diseases such as heart failure and lung disease,” Joanne Lynn, M.D., ABCD President said. “By learning how to treat cancer pain, we learned to treat other kinds of pain. And by learning how to do the best we can for dying cancer patients, we will learn to do the best we can for everyone.”
Lynn contributed to Improving Palliative Care for Cancer, a report from the National Cancer Policy Board, which was established to advise the nation on priorities in cancer care. Its members include national experts on pain and cancer treatment. The new report, edited by Kathleen Foley, M.D., and Hellen Gelband, urges the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to include palliative care in research and clinical practice.
“Until recently, most cancer funding and programs emphasized winning our national war against cancer, with all the effort devoted to treatment, prevention, and survivorship,” said Lynn. “These new recommendations offer hope that the nation is coming to terms with the fact that some people still will die. All people suffering from serious and fatal disease will benefit from better pain and symptom management, and from programs and policies that meet the medical, financial, and social needs of dying patients and their families.”
At a briefing in Washington, DC, pain specialist Kathleen Foley, M.D., Director of the Project on Death in America, noted that the recommendations are not meant to create a debate about whether cure or care is the appropriate treatment. “The argument may be about what is appropriate care at the end of life,” she said.
The report recommends that:
- National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers play a central role in advancing palliative care research and clinical practice, with initiatives to address barriers to such care.
- NCI add a requirement that any facility designated as a “Comprehensive Cancer Center” include research in palliative care and symptom control.
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly HCFA) fund demonstration programs for service delivery and reimbursement that integrate palliative care and potentially life-prolonging treatments for the course of a disease.
- Private insurers provide adequate compensation for end-of-life care.
- Public and private organizations that provide information about cancer treatment, health insurers, and pharmaceutical companies add comprehensive and accurate information about palliative care to patient-oriented materials.
- Practice guidelines dictate the standard of care for physical and psychosocial symptoms.
- Previous recommendations from the Policy Board on enhancing data systems be applied to palliative and end-of-life care.
- NCI convene a State of the Science Meeting on palliative care and symptom control.
- NCI establish the appropriate institutional loci for palliative care, symptom control, and end-of-life research.
- NCI review the membership of its advisory bodies to ensure representation of experts in cancer pain, symptom management, and palliative care.
“We applaud this work by the National Cancer Policy Board,” Lynn said. “It marks the start of a new era of comprehensive services to people living with and dying of cancer. With research from the National Cancer Institute and the other recommendations from NCPB, organizations everywhere can begin to evaluate how to get palliative care services to people when they need them, where they need them, and at price society can bear.”
Read excerpts online read at the National Research Council., or order a paperback version for $18 from National Academy Press.
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This content is provided by Americans for Better Care of the Dying. For more information, visit www.abcd-caring.org.
