The majority of patients with newly diagnosed metastatic ESCC and gastric cancer patients experience a number of physical and psychosocial symptoms related to their cancer. Those patients endure the greatest level of distress from their disease relative to other cancer populations in China. Although new drugs have been applied in recent years, the median overall survival time of metastatic ESCC and GC patients are still around 12 months. Therefore, it is essential to maximize their quality of life (QOL) from the time of diagnosis. Multiple studies demonstrate that symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and anorexia are prevalent at diagnosis and worsen over time. As a result, suffering increases throughout the course of the illness. To be most effective, palliative care with intensive symptom management and psychosocial support should begin at the time of diagnosis, not once life-prolonging therapies have failed. And some studies have revealed that early palliative can even prolong the overall survival time in advanced lung cancer. The investigators then initiated a randomized phase III clinical trial with standard oncology care plus early palliative care or not in metastatic esophageal carcinoma and gastric cancer to observe whether the early palliative can improve the QOL and even prolong the overall survival time in those patients
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
592
Early nutrition intervention and psychological intervention
Peking Universtiy Cancer Hospital
Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
RECRUITINGOverall survival
Time from randomization to death
Time frame: 2 years
Quality of life
Measure the scores of quality of life form
Time frame: 2 years
Overall response rate
complete response rate plus partial response rate
Time frame: 1 year
Adverse event
Number of participants with adverse events as a measure of safety and tolerability
Time frame: 2 year
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