Lung Cancer Guidelines With No Mention of Palliative Care?

(Ed. - Welcome Mr. John Hennessy to the Pallimed family.  His background in executive leadership of oncology programs brings a potential outsiders perspective to Pallimed.  Thankfully he is a strong ally and champion for hospice and palliative care as you will see from his first post. Great to have you here John. - Christian)  Disappointed…frustrated…we’ve all been there.  My most vivid memories are of birthdays at home, when books and socks were unwrapped rather than remote control model airplanes and car keys. It wasn’t my birthday this week, but my daily e-mails usually include a gift or two. This week, it came from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) in the form of a link to the 2013 NCCN Guidelines for Patients for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC).  At the time of this writing, it appears to be one of the most recently-updated guide books available. If you haven’t seen the guidelines on the NCCN website, they are pretty amazing.  They look sharp— the graphics are top notch.  The NSCLC guide is exactly 100 pages, and is nothing, if not thorough.  Diagrams of the lungs and lymph nodes are excellent and informative.  The guide covers diagnosis and testing, staging and a broad spectrum of treatment options. I’ll admit that, initially, I didn’t read it word for word, cover to cover—but I was certainly scanning for key concepts.  In particular, I was looking for how the guide would integrate ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Source Type: blogs