The idea that having good policies and procedures in place to help patients and family members to address end-of-life care is highly controversial in some quarters. However, The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink believes that there is a great need for clear professional and consumer guidance on end-of-life care related to cancer … … and the Wall Street Journal Health Blog appears to concur.
The full text of the new ASCO policy statement can be found on line in the following article from the Journal of Clinical Oncology:
A companion patient/caregiver booklet entitled “Advanced Cancer Care Planning” has also been made available on line.
Later this year, ASCO will issue clinical guidance to help oncologists initiate conversations associated with end-of life care and better integrate palliative therapy into oncology practice.
The following is a list of relevant links that may be helpful for some people:
- The media release from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) announcing development and future release of the new guidelines
- Preparation at the end of life (an article on the Cancer.net web site)
- The article on the guidelines on the Wall Street Journal Health Blog
- Another article on the guidelines on The Chart — the CNN health blog
- An article on variation in end-of-life care, also published on the Wall Street Journal Health Blog in November 2010
- Commentary on article in the New England Journal of Medicine last year showing that high quality palliative care could actually extend survival among lung cancer patients
- Commentary on article in the New Yorker about end-of-life decision making and cancer
- Commentary on article about terminal prostate cancer, quality of death, and hospice care
Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management Tagged: | care, end of life, hospice, palliation
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Thanks for posting this. I read this article and the linked ASCO statement today, which is ironic as Sarah Palin is drawing attention today for a statement about what would have been President Reagan’s 100th birthday. Does anyone know if she has apologized for distorting and demonizing such late stage counseling as Government “death panels”? It is distressing that Reps. Boehner, now Speaker of the House, and Michelle Bachman, now head of the Tea Party Caucus, made similar statements. Have they changed their stands?
I don’t know how we would go about it, but we need to inform these leaders what late stage counseling is really about. Part of the problem is probably simple ignorance.