Palliative care for cancer: Podcast with Jennifer Temel and Areej El-Jawahri

We are fortunate today to interview two oncologists whose research has catapulted palliative care forward: Jennifer Temel, author of the landmark NEJM study on early outpatient palliative care for patients with advanced lung cancer; and Areej El-Jawahri, author of the landmark JAMA article on inpatient palliative care for patients with blood cancers undergoing stem cell transplant.   Jennifer’s study is most widely known for the “kicker” - not only did it improve quality of life, palliative care was associated with a couple months longer survival.   Areej’s study is remarkably novel in that it is, to our knowledge, the first study of palliative care during curative treatment.   We cover a huge amount of ground today, including: Jennifer’s reaction when she unblinded the study and found that palliative care was associated with prolonged life Differences between inpatient and outpatient palliative care for cancer What’s in the secret sauce of palliative care?  (hint: coping) What’s the right dose of palliative care? Do we need separate palliative care models for each cancer? What is next for these two?  Celine Dion Additional links: Editorial on Areej’s study Palliative care in lung and GI cancers GeriPal post on qualitative study of the Temel RCT GeriPal post on “fast food” style palliative care in chronic critical illness JAMA paper on remote symptom monitoring in cancer