Table 4.
The research on the integration between cancer treatments and palliative cares (PART C).
| N. respondents | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Do you consider it to be the competence of medical oncologists to activate or participate in clinical trials dealing with treatment of symptoms in cancer patients? | |||
| Completely agree | 286 | 74 | ||
| Partially agree | 99 | 25 | ||
| Disagree | 4 | 1 | ||
| I don't know | 0 | 0 | ||
| C2 | Do you think there may be ethical or psychological issues in giving information and consenting for clinical trials aimed at improving treatment of symptoms? | |||
| No | 351 | 89 | ||
| Yes (specify§§) | 14 | 4 | ||
| I don't know | 26 | 7 | ||
| C3 | Which areas of palliative medicine do you consider important for medical oncologists to invest in research? | |||
| Communication and relational aspects | 228 | 24* | 51^ | |
| Treatment of symptoms | 231 | 24 | 51 | |
| Organization and management models | 191 | 20 | 67 | |
| Interrelation between oncological treatment and palliative care | 300 | 32 | 26 | |
| None of the above | 3 | 0 | 1 | |
| C4 | What do you think should be the principal objective of clinical research in patients with advanced non-curable cancer? | |||
| Improvement in overall survival | 58 | 15 | ||
| Improvement in disease free survival | 15 | 4 | ||
| Improvement in quality of life | 304 | 77 | ||
| Cost reduction | 0 | 0 | ||
| Other | 14 | 4 | ||
| C5 | Which is the definition of “clinical benefit” you consider most appropriate? | |||
| Gain in disease-free survival | 22 | 5 | ||
| Dimensional decrease of tumor | 4 | 1 | ||
| Improvement in quality of life | 342 | 88 | ||
| Pain reduction | 5 | 2 | ||
| Other | 18 | 4 | ||
| C6 | In the choice of a palliative/symptomatic treatment of the oncological patient you rely on: | |||
| Experience | 174 | 45 | ||
| Advice of an expert in Palliative Care | 104 | 26 | ||
| Consultation of guidelines | 87 | 22 | ||
| Patients and their families | 8 | 2 | ||
| Other | 18 | 4 | ||
| C7 | With regard to the trial by Temel et al (4), which are your considerations: | |||
| The results are applicable only to NSCLC | 37 | 9 | ||
| The results may be replicated in all tumor types | 221 | 57 | ||
| Such results should change the practice in medical oncology | 116 | 29 | ||
| Such results do not change the practice in medical oncology | 17 | 5 | ||
Footnotes: * % on total options; ^ % on single options
§§ Positive bias for expectations; patients' awareness; difficulty in communication; difficulty in randomization; patients' cultural-background difficulties; should be palliative specialists' task; it's part of the oncologist's tasks; side effects and effective improvement of prognosis; overt and punctual communication of prognosis and difficulties of such disclosures to be accepted by EC; ethics problems in placebo use in terminally ill patients; patients' may associate palliative care use with terminal care; symptoms' care is usually felt as a “non-therapy” when it is the sole therapy used; fear of receiving “less-curative” treatment; poor understanding; fear of obtaining a consensus which is ethically valid for patients in poor general conditions; palliative sedation.