Palliative care research: lessons learned by our team over the last 25 years

In the last 25 years, palliative care has made major progress as an interdisciplinary specialty that addresses quality-of-life issues for patients with life-limiting illnesses and their families. Research by numerous investigators has contributed to our increasing body of knowledge to support an evidence-based practice.

We highlight some lessons learned by our group in the process of conducting palliative care research, focusing in particular on symptom assessment; the management of pain, fatigue, cachexia, dyspnea, delirium, and opioid-induced neurotoxicity; and outcomes of our palliative care program.

Narrative review of selected literature, focusing on studies conducted by our group.

This article is based on the Second Vittorio Ventafridda Memorial Lecture by Dr Eduardo Bruera, delivered at the European Association for Palliative Care, Trondheim, Norway on 8 June 2012.

For each topic, we review some of the pivotal studies in palliative care, discuss the challenges in research design, and outline possible directions for future research.

We conclude by sharing some of what we learned about the processes, pearls, and pitfalls of palliative care research.