Quality End-of-Life Cancer Care: An Unfulfilled but Achievable Imperative

Disease-focus management of late-stage cancer without addressing patients' preferences or quality of life (QoL) can lead to unsatisfactory patient and disease outcomes.

A PRISMA-adherent systematic review of the literature was conducted via PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar to assess the current late-stage cancer treatment modality, setting, timing, and cost, their impact on patient and disease outcomes, and possible interventions for improvement.

Out of many studies, twelve from North America, Western Europe, and Asia met our inclusion criteria. A detailed analysis of the 929,408 late-stage cancer patients included revealed common management practices. Typically, patients were subjected to sustained intensive disease-focused treatment through the end-of-life (EoL) while deferring palliative care and other host-sustaining measures. Such practices compromised patients' QoL and increased costs without meeting their needs and expectations or significantly altering the course of the disease. To forestall such practices, five pragmatic host-focused management principles are proposed. In contrast to clinical practice guidelines (CPG), they can be promoted directly to current and future cancer care professionals as an easy-to-memorize and apply template: to the former via continuing medical education, podcasts, webinars, and other tutorials; to the latter by its incorporation into Oncology, Hematology, Hospice, and other cancer-training programs.

Despite major advances in early-stage cancer treatment and survival, late-stage cancer care is hindered by continuous disease-focused practices pursued through the EoL that lead to unsatisfactory patient and disease outcomes. Such practices can be reversed by adopting host-focused management principles that promote QoL and meet patients' needs and expectations as a basis for delivering holistic cancer care through the EoL.