Including palliative care early in the course of cancer therapy for patients with advanced acute myeloid leukemia results in substantial improvements in quality of life, mood, and end-of-life care, according to a new study.
The findings demonstrate the benefits of early integration of palliative care for symptoms and stress into oncology care for patients with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a highly aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
“This is the first multi-site randomized trial of an integrated palliative care intervention in patients with any blood cancer,” says Thomas W. LeBlanc, a medical oncologist and palliative care physician at Duke Cancer Institute and co-lead author of the study in