Symptom Screening With Targeted Early Palliative Care (STEP) for Patients With Advanced Cancer

Overview

Palliative care is defined as multidisciplinary care that increases quality of life (QOL) for patients with a life-threatening illness. Although it is known that patients with the most severe physical and psychological symptoms have the greatest need for palliative care, these patients are often not referred to palliative care services in a timely manner. We have developed a system called STEP (Symptom screening with Targeted Early Palliative care) that identifies patients with high symptom burden in order to offer them timely access to palliative care. The investigators are conducting a single-arm trial at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre to determine the feasibility of a larger randomized trial of STEP versus usual care and to establish specific parameters for its planning.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have shown when patients with advanced cancer were referred early to specialized palliative care teams, they had improved QOL, symptom control, and greater satisfaction with their cancer care. Such routine specialized palliative care intervention, while effective, may be challenging to enact broadly with widespread shortages of palliative care physicians. STEP systematically identifies patients with the greatest need, using symptom screening at every outpatient visit, with triage and targeted referral to palliative care. This could reduce resource use while directing care to the most vulnerable. Patients will be recruited from Breast, Lung, Gastrointestinal, Genitourinary, and Gynecology medical oncology clinics. Consenting participants will complete questionnaires measuring outcomes of QOL, symptom control, depression, and satisfaction with care at recruitment, 2, 4 and 6 months. The objectives of the study are to assess the feasibility of conducting a larger phase III trial and to collect information to assist in trial planning and sample size calculation for such a trial. Feasibility criteria are: i) ≥100 patients accrued in 12 months; ii) ≥70% complete screening for ≥70% of visits; iii) ≥60% of those for whom a call is triggered meet at least once with the EPC team; iv) ≥60% complete measures at each endpoint.