Current Situation of Palliative Care Services Within Hepatology

AbstractPurpose of reviewWe attempt to describe the current situation of palliative care in hepatology.Recent findingsPalliative care aims to alleviate suffering and improve the quality of life of patients with serious illness. Recently, palliative care has begun to develop more outside of oncology and within the context of organ failure. Within the study of end-stage liver disease (ESLD), palliative care has shown benefits for both patient care as well as the health care system as a whole. Despite this, few patients are referred for specialist palliative care, and when referrals do occur, they are frequently in the last days of life. Barriers to implementing this system of care include misconceptions of palliative care ’s role and potential benefit to hepatology care, a shortage of specialty palliative care providers, the lack of training and education to establish primary palliative care, and the need for fertile policy and infrastructure development to support its implementation.SummaryMultiple barriers to implement palliative care in ESLD exist; however, they are actively being more readily defined and tackled. It is in this progress that we find the current situation of palliative care within hepatology.
Source: Current Hepatitis Reports - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research