Improving Palliative Care for Cancer

Institute of Medicine
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Staff Directory

Released On:

June 19, 2001

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When Americans get cancer, and particularly when they die from it, they are likely to be in pain and suffer from a host of other symptoms because the available palliative care is inadequate. The IOM National Cancer Policy Board, in the report Improving Palliative Care for Cancer, examines the barriers - economic, policy, social and scientific - that keep people from getting good palliative care, and proposes a series of steps that could improve this situation.

The board expanded on its 1999 recommendations about ensuring quality care for cancer patients, and on those made in a 1997 IOM report on end-of-life care, which was the first comprehensive, evidence-based report on these issues. This new report focuses on management of cancer-related symptoms and timely referral to palliative and hospice care.

Two booklets, one in English and one in Spanish, summarize the findings and recommendations of this for the lay reader. The booklets describe the types of palliative care--"comfort care"--that should be available for people dying from cancer, and the reasons why, too often, people suffer needlessly without it.

Read the booklet in English
Read the booklet in Spanish

Resources & Links
	Report Brief. Improving Palliative Care for Cancer


Last Updated: 9/02/2004, 10:56 AM	RSS