SR I Dr Alexandru Grigorescu, medical oncology consultant at the Institute of Oncology Bucharest, Romania, member of the ESMO Palliative Care Working Group, said: "The integration of palliative care in oncology is a challenge. This is especially the case for countries with few resources, where the healthcare budget is low, with insufficient palliative care specialists and some drugs are unavailable as hospitals do not have the funds to buy them."
"ESMO brings a new approach to palliative care, namely by integrating it with specific anticancer treatment conducted in medical oncology departments," continued Grigorescu. "In this context, we conducted a study to assess palliative care needs and delivery in patients with advanced, incurable cancer."
The research was conducted in five Romanian and one Swiss institutes. It found that 17% of patients received no palliative care interventions and 26% did not have their symptoms addressed. One-fifth of patients wanted to discuss end-of-life issues with a healthcare professional, but it occurred in just 15% of cases. Only 10% of patients had a care plan.
Grigorescu said: "Our study shows that there are significant gaps in the delivery of palliative care for patients with advanced, incurable cancer. Our findings argue for healthcare decision-makers to increase the budget for palliative care. We hope the study will make a point about the importance of treating patients during this period. In Romania we do not have an independent speciality of palliative care, so it should be the responsibility of medical oncologists."