Chapter Overview
More than 70% of all cancer patients develop symptoms from either their primary tumor or metastatic disease. Approximately half of patients diagnosed with cancer will develop metastatic disease. Controlling symptoms due to cancer or its treatment is an important obligation in cancer care. When cancer is not curable, it should be treated like a chronic disease with interventions aimed to prevent or control newly developed symptoms. Treatment needs to be indexed to the site and volume of disease and the prognosis. The time required for palliative care and the toxicity of palliative care must be minimized. Patients should not spend a disproportionate percentage of their remaining life receiving palliative treatment. Ineffective therapies that involve morbidity and cost and provide little or no palliative benefit should not be administered. The burden of palliative care should not exceed the burden of disease.
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Janjan, N.A. et al. (2005). Palliative Therapy. In: Ajani, J.A., Lynch, P.M., Janjan, N.A., Curley, S.A. (eds) Gastrointestinal Cancer. M. D. Anderson Cancer Care Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-27285-2_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-27285-2_18
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