An Advanced Practice Nurse Coordinated Multidisciplinary Intervention for Patients with Late-Stage Cancer: A Cluster...

Early palliative care provided through a palliative care consultative service is effective in enhancing patient outcomes. However, it is unknown whether the integration of palliative care as part of routine comprehensive cancer care improves patients' self-reported clinical outcomes.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of a multidisciplinary coordinated intervention by advanced practice nurses at the clinic level on outcomes with patients newly diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

A clustered, randomized, controlled trial design was used. Four disease-specific multidisciplinary clinics were randomized to the 10-week intervention (gynecologic and lung clinics) or to enhanced usual care (head and neck and gastrointestinal clinics). Patient primary outcomes (symptoms, health distress, depression, functional status, self-reported health) were collected at baseline and one and three months, and secondary outcomes were collected one and three months postbaseline. General linear mixed model analyses with a covariance structure of within-subject correlation was used to examine the intervention's effect.

The sample included 146 patients with newly diagnosed late-stage cancers. We found no differences between the two groups on the primary patient-reported outcomes at one and three months postbaseline; however, physical and emotional symptoms remained stable or significantly improved from baseline for both groups. Overall, secondary outcomes remained stable within the groups.

In this translational study, we demonstrated that if patients newly diagnosed with late-stage cancer were managed by disease-specific multidisciplinary teams who palliated their symptoms, providing whole-patient care, patient outcomes remained stable or improved.