Patient-Centered Palliative Care for Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S. Temel ◽  
Laura A. Petrillo ◽  
Joseph A. Greer
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Checkpoint Inhibitors ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Cancer Therapeutics ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Patient Reported

The evidence base demonstrating the benefits of an early focus on palliative care for patients with serious cancers, including advanced lung cancer, is substantial. Early involvement of specialty-trained palliative care clinicians in the care of patients with advanced lung cancer improves patient-reported outcomes, such as quality of life, and health care delivery, including hospice utilization. Since the time that many of these palliative care trials were conducted, the paradigm of cancer care for many cancers, including lung cancer, has changed dramatically. The majority of patients with advanced lung cancer are now treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors or targeted therapies, both of which have had a significant impact on patient's experience and outcomes. With this changing landscape of lung cancer therapeutics, patients are facing new and different challenges, including dealing with novel side effect profiles and coping with greater uncertainty regarding their prognosis. Patients who are living longer with their advanced cancer also struggle with how to address survivorship issues, such as sexual health and exercise, and decision making about end-of-life care. Although palliative care clinicians remain well-suited to address these care needs, they may need to learn new skills to support patients treated with novel therapies. Additionally, as the experience of patients with advanced lung cancer is becoming more varied and individualized, palliative care research interventions and clinical programs should also be delivered in a patient-centered manner to best meet patient's needs and improve their outcomes. Tailored and technology-based palliative care interventions are promising strategies for delivering patient-centered palliative care.

Patterns of healthcare utilization in patients with newly diagnosed advanced lung cancer.

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e18386-e18386
Author(s):  
Emily Miller Ray ◽  
Sharon Peacock Hinton ◽  
Katherine Elizabeth Reeder-Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Healthcare Utilization ◽  
Cancer Care ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Small Cell ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Newly Diagnosed ◽  
Index Hospitalization

e18386 Background: Advanced lung cancer (ALC) is a symptomatic disease that is often diagnosed in the context of hospitalization. The index hospitalization may be a window of opportunity to improve cancer care delivery. We aimed to define the frequency of ALC diagnosis associated with hospitalization and the relationship to subsequent cancer care and readmissions. Methods: We identified patients in the SEER-Medicare database with: ALC (stage IIIB-IV non-small cell or small cell), diagnosed 2007 to 2013; with continuous enrollment in Medicare from 6 months prior to lung cancer diagnosis through death or 12/2014; and an index hospitalization within 7 days of their ALC diagnosis. Our primary outcomes of interest were 30-day re-hospitalization and emergency department (ED) use. We examined: utilization of services during index hospitalization, including intensive care and oncology or palliative care consultation; discharge destination; receipt of systemic therapy; and hospice enrollment. Results: Fifty-four percent (n = 28,976) of ALC patients had an index hospitalization, with 90% of those having their cancer diagnosed while hospitalized. During their index hospitalization, 16% had oncology consultation, and 6% had palliative care (PC) consultation. Thirty-three percent were in the intensive care unit. At discharge, 59% returned home, 8% died, and 11% went to hospice. Of those who survived to discharge, 69% later returned to the ED or were re-hospitalized, with 49% of re-hospitalizations and 35% of ED visits occurring within 30 days of the index hospitalization. Thirty-five percent of these patients eventually received systemic treatment for their cancer. By 180 days post-discharge, 77% had enrolled in hospice with a median of 10 days on hospice care. Conclusions: Newly diagnosed ALC patients are high risk for acute care utilization, and many patients experience a return to the hospital early in their cancer trajectory. These patients may benefit from additional health system support prior to hospital discharge to help prevent high-cost, low-value healthcare utilization.

scholarly journals Role of the clinical nurse specialist as a non-medical prescriber in managing the palliative care needs of individuals with advanced lung cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-212
Author(s):  
Jenny Osborne ◽  
Helen Kerr
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Clinical Nurse Specialist ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Nurse Specialist ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Clinical Nurse ◽  
Palliative Care Needs

Background: Rapid identification of the palliative care needs of individuals with a diagnosis of advanced lung cancer is crucial to maximise the patient's quality of life by upholding exemplary standards of patient-centred holistic care. The clinical nurse specialist is in an ideal position to contribute to the identification and management of the palliative care needs of individuals with advanced lung cancer through the assessment and timely prescribing of medications to manage distressing symptoms. Aim: This paper reviews and critiques the role of the clinical nurse specialist as an independent non-medical prescriber in the management of palliative symptoms in end-of-life care for patients with advanced lung cancer. Results: Published literature highlights the positive impact the clinical nurse specialist has as a non-medical prescriber in addressing the palliative needs of individuals with lung cancer. However, there are barriers and challenges, and to overcome these, maximising resources and the availability of support is required to ensure the delivery of timely, person-centred care. Conclusion: The clinical nurse specialist as a non-medical prescriber is an evolving role. There are a range of factors that may influence the clinical nurse specialist to confidently and competently undertake this role. These include the perception that there will be an escalation in the workload, concerns about increased accountability and inadequate mentoring for this new role. To incentivise this role, multidisciplinary support is essential in promoting the clinical nurse specialist's confidence for developing this service to individuals with advanced lung cancer.

scholarly journals The role of palliative care in the management of patients with lung cancer

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. LMT39
Author(s):  
Irena Tan ◽  
Kavitha Ramchandran
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Patient Reported Outcomes ◽  
Symptom Burden ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Patient Reported ◽  
Patient Prognosis

Palliative care (PC) is the care of patients and their families with serious illness and is rapidly becoming an important part of the care of cancer patients. Patients with advanced lung cancer are a highly symptomatic population of patients and clearly experience benefits in quality of life and potentially benefits in overall survival when PC is incorporated early on after diagnosis. However, referrals to PC are still reliant on clinical judgment of patient prognosis and symptom burden. Moving forward, improving the integration of PC and lung cancer care will require more efficient real-time screening of patient symptoms, which may be accomplished through the use of patient-reported outcomes.

Co-created Mobile Apps for Palliative Care using Community Partnered Participatory Research: Development and Usability Study (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jafar Al-Mondhiry ◽  
Sarah D’Ambruoso ◽  
Christopher Pietras ◽  
Thomas Strouse ◽  
Dikla Benzeevi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
User Interface ◽  
Participatory Research ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Mobile App ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Patient Reported

BACKGROUND Open design formats for mobile applications help clinicians and stakeholders bring their needs to direct, co-creative solutions. Palliative care for patients with advanced cancers requires intensive monitoring and support, and remains an area in high need for innovation. OBJECTIVE To use community partnered participatory research (CPPR) to co-design a mobile application to meet the palliative care priorities of clinicians and patients with advanced cancer. METHODS In-person and virtual workshops were held with patient and community stakeholders, researchers, and clinicians from palliative care and oncology. Question prompts, written feedback, semi-structured interviews and facilitated group discussion identified core palliative care needs. Using Chorus, a no-code app building platform, a mobile app was co-designed with stakeholders. A pilot test with a cohort of 11 patients was conducted, with semi-structured interviews of clinician and patient users for feedback. RESULTS Key themes identified from focus groups included patient advocacy and encouragement, access to vetted information, patient/clinician communication, and symptom management. The final prototype, “My Wellness App,” contained: 1) a weekly wellness journal to track patient-reported symptoms, goals, and medication use; 2) information on self-management of symptoms; 3) lists of community resources; and 4) patient and caregiver testimonial videos. Initial pilot testing identified value in app-based communication for clinicians, patients, and caregivers, with needs for improving user interface, feedback and presentation of symptom reports, gamification, and integration of a coordinator to support patient app engagement. CONCLUSIONS Development of a mobile app using CPPR is a low-cost, low-tech, and feasible intervention for palliative care delivery. Iterative re-design and user interface expertise may improve implementation.

scholarly journals Expanded human NK cells from lung cancer patients sensitize patients’ PDL1−negative tumors to PD1-blockade therapy

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. e001933
Author(s):  
Sophie M Poznanski ◽  
Tyrah M Ritchie ◽  
Isabella Y Fan ◽  
Abdullah El-Sayes ◽  
Ana L Portillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Nk Cells ◽  
Tumor Regression ◽  
Checkpoint Inhibitors ◽  
Combined Treatment ◽  
Death Receptor ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Pd1 Blockade

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death worldwide despite the significant progress made by immune checkpoint inhibitors, including programmed death receptor-1 (PD1)/PD ligand 1 (PDL1)-blockade therapy. PD1/PDL1−blockade has achieved unprecedented tumor regression in some patients with advanced lung cancer. However, the majority of patients fail to respond to PD1/PDL1 inhibitors. The high rate of therapy non-response results from insufficient PDL1 expression on most patients’ tumors and the presence of further immunosuppressive mechanisms in the tumor microenvironment. Here, we sensitize non-responding tumors from patients with lung cancer to PD1-blockade therapy using highly cytotoxic expanded natural killer (NK) cells. We uncover that NK cells expanded from patients with lung cancer dismantle the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment by maintaining strong antitumor activity against both PDL1+ and PDL1− patient tumors. In the process, through a contact-independent mechanism involving interferon γ, expanded NK cells rescued tumor killing by exhausted endogenous TILs and upregulated the tumor proportion score of PDL1 across patient tumors. In contrast, unexpanded NK cells, which are susceptible to tumor-induced immunosuppression, had no effect on tumor PDL1. As a result, combined treatment of expanded NK cells and PD1-blockade resulted in robust synergistic tumor destruction of initially non-responding patient tumors. Thus, expanded NK cells may overcome the critical roadblocks to extending the prodigious benefits of PD1-blockade therapy to more patients with lung cancer and other tumor types.

scholarly journals Personalized neoantigen pulsed dendritic cell vaccine for advanced lung cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Ding ◽  
Qing Li ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Li Xie ◽  
Yang Shu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Dendritic Cell ◽  
Cancer Treatment ◽  
Checkpoint Inhibitors ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Therapeutic Modality ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Cell Vaccine ◽  
Lung Cancer Treatment ◽  
Dc Vaccine

AbstractNeoantigens are considered to be ultimate target of tumor immunotherapy due to their high tumor specificity and immunogenicity. Dendritic cell (DCs) vaccines based on neoantigens have exciting effects in treatment of some malignant tumors and are a promising therapeutic modality. Lung cancer is a lethal disease with the highest morbidity and mortality rate in the world. Despite the rapid development of targeted therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors for lung cancer in recent years, their efficacy is still unsatisfactory overall. Therefore, there is an urgent unmet clinical need for lung cancer treatment. Here, we attempted to treat lung cancer using a personalized neoantigen peptide-pulsed autologous DC vaccine and conducted a single-arm, 2 medical centers, pilot study initiated by the investigator (ChiCTR-ONC-16009100, NCT02956551). The patients enrolled were patients with heavily treated metastatic lung cancer. Candidate neoantigens were derived from whole-exome sequencing and RNA sequencing of fresh biopsy tissues as well as bioinformatics analysis. A total of 12 patients were enrolled in this study. A total of 85 vaccine treatments were administered with a median value of 5 doses/person (range: 3–14 doses/person). In total, 12–30 peptide-based neoantigens were selected for each patient. All treatment-related adverse events were grade 1–2 and there were no delays in dosing due to toxic effects. The objective effectiveness rate was 25%; the disease control rate was 75%; the median progression-free survival was 5.5 months and the median overall survival was 7.9 months. This study provides new evidence for neoantigen vaccine therapy and new therapeutic opportunities for lung cancer treatment.

scholarly journals Astragalus Polysaccharide Injection (PG2) Normalizes the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer Receiving Immunotherapy

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 153473542199525
Author(s):  
Shih Ming Tsao ◽  
Tz Chin Wu ◽  
JiZhen Chen ◽  
Feichi Chang ◽  
Thomos Tsao
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Overall Survival ◽  
Survival Data ◽  
Treatment Initiation ◽  
Checkpoint Inhibitors ◽  
Neutrophil To Lymphocyte Ratio ◽  
Advanced Lung Cancer ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Lymphocyte Ratio ◽  
Astragalus Polysaccharide

Objectives: The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a prognostic marker in patients with cancer receiving immunotherapy. Recent studies have shown that a high NLR was associated with a poor response and decreased survival. However, there is no intervention to reverse abnormally high NLR and improve clinical outcomes. Astragalus polysaccharide injection (PG2) is an immunomodulatory therapy for cancer-related fatigue. This study aimed to examine whether PG2 might normalize the NLR and affect the overall survival of patients with lung cancer treated with immunotherapy. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively examined the medical records of patients with lung cancer treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) between October 1, 2015 and November 30, 2019. All patients received ICI combination chemotherapies, and some similarly received PG2 (Control vs PG2). The NLR was assessed before treatment and 6 weeks after ICI initiation, and the survival data was collected at least 4 years after treatment initiation for the first enrolled patient. Results: Fifty-three patients were included. Six weeks after ICI initiation, 91.3% of the patients in the PG2 group exhibited a predefined “Decrease or no change” in the NLR, which was 28% higher than that in the Control group (63.3%) ( P = .028). The NLR significantly decreased by 31.60% from baseline in the PG2 group ( P = .012), whereas it increased by 5.80% in the Control group ( P = .572). Six weeks after ICI treatment initiation, both groups had a median NLR of 3.73, and the overall survival was also similar (PG2 vs Control, 26.1 months vs 25.4 months, respectively); however, the PG2 group had a higher median baseline NLR than the Control group (PG2 vs Control, 4.51 vs 2.81, respectively). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that PG2 could normalize the NLR in patients with lung cancer receiving ICI combination treatments.

scholarly journals Advantages and challenges in using telehealth for home-based palliative care: A systematic mixed studies review protocol (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simen A Steindal ◽  
Andréa Aparecida Goncalves Nes ◽  
Tove E. Godskesen ◽  
Susanne Lind ◽  
Alfhild Dhle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Mixed Studies Review ◽  
Palliative Care Services ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
Systematic Mixed Studies Review ◽  
At Home

BACKGROUND Due to the increasing number of people in need of palliative care services and the current health care professional workforce strain, providing equitable, quality palliative care has become a challenge. Telehealth could be an innovative approach to palliative care delivery, enabling patients to spend more time or even remain at home, if they wish, throughout the illness trajectory. However, no previous systematic mixed studies reviews have synthesized evidence on patients’ experiences of the advantages and challenges of telehealth for home-based palliative care. OBJECTIVE The aim of this systematic mixed studies review is to critically appraise and synthesize findings from studies that investigated patients’ use of telehealth in home-based palliative care with a focus on the advantages and challenges experienced by the patients. METHODS This article describes the protocol for a systematic mixed studies review with a convergent design. The reporting will be guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Statement. A systematic search was performed in eight databases for studies published from January 2010 to June 2020. The search will be updated in 2021. Pairs of authors will independently assess eligibility, extract data and assess methodological quality. The data will then be analyzed using thematic synthesis. RESULTS We described the rationale and design of a systematic mixed studies review. The database searches were performed on June 25, 2020. Assessment of eligibility and further steps have not yet been performed. Results are anticipated by August 2021. CONCLUSIONS Following the ethos of patient-centered palliative care, this systematic mixed studies review could contribute recommendations for practice and policy enabling the development of telehealth applications and services that align with patients’ preferences and needs when using telehealth applications and services at home.

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