scholarly journals Nutrition in Cancer Care: A Brief, Practical Guide With a Focus on Clinical Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. OP.20.00704
Author(s):  
Gabor Liposits ◽  
Ylva Orrevall ◽  
Stein Kaasa ◽  
Pia Österlund ◽  
Tommy Cederholm

This overview aims to create an understanding of the nutritional issues concerning patients with cancer and provide evidence-based practical guidance to healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, and dietitians), caregivers, and all others involved in the care of patients with cancer. The focus of this paper is therefore on providing a simple guide for daily clinical practice. The theoretical background and in-depth comprehensive reviews of malnutrition are described elsewhere. Nutrition plays a crucial role in cancer care. It affects treatment tolerability, outcomes, and quality of life. However, a focus on nutrition is still lacking among oncologists because of insufficient training in nutrition topics received during graduate and postgraduate training and an underestimation of its importance. The consequences of the disease and its treatment, such as anorexia-sarcopenia-cachexia, are therefore still often overlooked, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. The authors have summarized the most important challenges, evidence-based recommendations, and common clinical scenarios to bridge the gap between comprehensive guidelines and clinical practice, where brief concrete advice is preferred to systematic reviews. Furthermore, an easy applicable overview is provided, which can be used as a guide during daily routines.

2008 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bèatrice Fervers ◽  
Magali Remy-Stockinger ◽  
Valèrie Mazeau-Woynar ◽  
Renèe Otter ◽  
Alessandro Liberati ◽  
...  

All European countries are facing common challenges for delivering appropriate, evidence-based care to patients with cancer. Despite tangible improvements in diagnosis and treatment, marked differences in cancer survival exist throughout Europe. The reliable translation of new research evidence into consistent patient-oriented strategies is a key endeavour to overcome inequalities in healthcare. Clinical-practice guidelines are important tools for improving quality of care by informing professionals and patients about the most appropriate clinical practice. Guideline programmes in different countries use similar strategies to achieve similar goals. This results in unnecessary duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources. While different initiatives at the international level have attempted to improve the quality of guidelines, less investment has been made to overcome existing fragmentation and duplication of effort in cancer guideline development and research. To provide added value to existing initiatives and foster equitable access to evidence-based cancer care in Europe, CoCanCPG will establish cooperation between cancer guideline programmes. CoCanCPG is an ERA-Net coordinated by the French National Cancer Institute with 17 partners from 11 countries. The CoCanCPG partners will achieve their goal through an ambitious, step-wise approach with a long-term perspective, involving: 1. implementing a common framework for sharing knowledge and skills; 2. developing shared activities for guideline development; 3. assembling a critical mass for pertinent research into guideline methods; 4. implementing an appropriate framework for cooperation. Successful development of joint activities involves learning how to adopt common quality standards and how to share responsibilities, while taking into account the cultural and organisational diversity of the participating organisations. Languages barriers and different organisational settings add a level of complexity to setting up transnational collaboration. Through its activities, CoCanCPG will make an important contribution towards better access to evidence-based cancer practices and thus contribute to reducing inequalities and improving care for patients with cancer across Europe.


2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 1154-1159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Jacobsen ◽  
Lynne I. Wagner

There is a growing consensus that psychosocial care should be integrated into the routine care of patients with cancer. This consensus is consistent with the considerable body of evidence about the deleterious effects of allowing psychosocial needs to remain unmet and the growing body of evidence about the beneficial effects of providing psychosocial services to address unmet needs. Despite this evidence, available data suggest that a considerable portion of the population of patients with cancer does not receive needed psychosocial care. Three lines of professional activity initiated in recent years have the potential to address this issue in fundamental ways: the formulation of standards of cancer care that address the psychosocial component of care, the issuance of clinical practice guidelines for psychosocial care of patients with cancer, and the development and implementation of measurable indicators of the quality of psychosocial care in oncology settings. This article provides an overview of accomplishments in each of these areas; it is designed to ensure that oncologists and other cancer treatment providers are knowledgeable about current standards for psychosocial care, existing consensus- and evidenced-based recommendations for clinical practice in this area, and resources and tools for evaluating and, if indicated, improving the quality of the psychosocial care their patients are receiving. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of these activities and a consideration of how current efforts might be enhanced.


2021 ◽  
pp. 470-478
Author(s):  
Santhosshi Narayanan ◽  
Gabriel Lopez ◽  
Jun J. Mao ◽  
Wenli Liu ◽  
Lorenzo Cohen

Patients with cancer often seek an integrative approach to their care in hope of a cure or symptom management. The integrative care plan requires a patient-centered approach that involves attention to their concerns and developing a comprehensive plan involving physical, mind-body, and social modalities in collaboration with the patient’s main oncology team and colleagues in palliative care, pain management, psychiatry, and rehabilitation. A personalized symptom management strategy utilizing an evidence-based application of conventional and nonconventional therapies can help improve quality of life and optimize treatment outcomes. Recommendation of modalities such as acupuncture, massage, and mind-body practices, as well as open communication and discussion on herbs and supplements, their safety, and interactions with cancer and chemotherapy, is critical to achieve optimal clinical outcomes.


Author(s):  
Ya-Chen Tina Shih ◽  
Arti Hurria

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Committee on Improving the Quality of Cancer Care: Addressing the Challenges of an Aging Population was charged with evaluating and proposing recommendations on how to improve the quality of cancer care, with a specific focus on the aging population. Based on their findings, the IOM committee recently released a report highlighting their 10 recommendations for improving the quality of cancer care. Based on those recommendations, this article highlights ways to improve evidence-based care and addresses rising costs in health care for older adults with cancer. The IOM highlighted three recommendations to address the current research gaps in providing evidence-based care in older adults with cancer, which included (1) studying populations which match the age and health-risk profile of the population with the disease, (2) legislative incentives for companies to include patients that are older or with multiple morbidities in new cancer drug trials, and (3) expansion of research that contributes to the depth and breadth of data available for assessing interventions. The recommendations also highlighted the need to maintain affordable and accessible care for older adults with cancer, with an emphasis on finding creative solutions within both the care delivery system and payment models in order to balance costs while preserving quality of care. The implementation of the IOM's recommendations will be a key step in moving closer to the goal of providing accessible, affordable, evidence-based, high-quality care to all patients with cancer.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 912-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manali Patel ◽  
Nevedal Andrea ◽  
Bhattacharya Jay ◽  
Tumaini R. Coker

Author(s):  
Cheryl Krauter

This chapter highlights and endorses a focus on continued progress in the area of integrative cancer care that assists the needs of the patients and also includes attention to the well-being of clinicians in cancer survivor care. Introducing a simple, relational structure that allows for both patients and clinicians to create a healing connection is one workable solution to the issues of quality survivorship care that can provide meaning and satisfaction to all concerned. The chapter provides evidence-based material on the vital importance of providing clinicians with meaningful support in their professional lives. It addresses their work–life balance and the importance of restoring their sense of personal meaning and quality of life to prevent burnout.


Author(s):  
John W. Robinson ◽  
Joshua J. Lounsberry ◽  
Lauren M. Walker

Extensive research has shown that cancer, and the treatment thereof, can interfere with healthy sexual functioning. Indeed, sexual dysfunction is frequently cited as one of the top adverse effects of cancer treatment. However, while healthcare professionals routinely discuss quality-of-life issues with cancer patients, the literature suggest that too often this does not include an assessment of sexual concerns. This chapter explains how the responsibility to initiate discussion on sexuality rests with the healthcare professional. Establishing the sexuality information needs of the cancer patient can sometimes be difficult and it becomes more so when healthcare professionals make erroneous assumptions concerning sexuality. Whether or not to assess sexuality is no longer a question, it must be a routine part of cancer care. While there are several different intervention models for patients suffering from sexual difficulties, the PLISSIT model is frequently used in cancer centres and easily adapted to various types of practice.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Kaisa Bjuresäter ◽  
Sister Tessy Sebastian ◽  
Bhalchandra Kulkarni ◽  
Elsy Athlin

Introduction: This study is a part of a project aimed at implementing and evaluating the Collaborative Model of Best Practice, (CMBP) to promoting evidence-based practice (EBP) in health care contexts. The aim of the study was to assess nurses’ interest, attitudes, utilisation, and views on promotors of and resources related to EBP before and after taking part in the CMBP project, and to investigate their views on the CMBP in relation to collaboration between the academy and clinical practice, the earning environment, job satisfaction, and nursing quality.Methods: A descriptive, comparative design was used with pre- and post-test measurements. The Research Utilization Questionnaire (RUQ) and study-specific questions were distributed to ward nurses (n = 67) in a rural Indian hospital.Results: Most of the nurses thought that the CMBP had a positive impact on quality of care, on their attitudes to, interest in, and knowledge EBP, and on their job satisfaction. They also considered that the collaboration between the nursing college and clinical practice had a positive impact on the learning environment and that more resources were available at the end of the project.Conclusions: The CMBP project was an attempt to improve the quality of care for patients and the learning environment for nursing students and nurses on the project wards. The results indicated fulfilment of these goals, which strengthens the usability of the model. Implementation of EBP is challenging and requires long-lasting activities and comprehensive support from leaders and facilitators. More studies are needed in which EBP is systematically implemented, accomplished, evaluated, and reported.


Healthcare ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Arensberg ◽  
Julie Richards ◽  
Jyoti Benjamin ◽  
Kirk Kerr ◽  
Refaat Hegazi

Malnutrition in patients with cancer is a ubiquitous but neglected problem that can reduce patient survival/quality of life and increase treatment interruptions, readmission rates, and healthcare costs. Malnutrition interventions, including nutrition support through dietary counseling, diet fortification, oral nutrition supplements (ONS), and enteral and parenteral nutrition can help improve health outcomes. However, nutritional care standards and interventions for cancer are ambiguous and inconsistently applied. The lack of systematic malnutrition screening and intervention in ambulatory cancer care has especially significant consequences and thus the nutrition support of patients with cancer represents an area for quality improvement. United States healthcare payment models such as the Oncology Care Model are linked to quality of care and health outcomes. Quality improvement programs (QIPs) can advance patient-centered care, perfect care processes, and help healthcare professionals meet their quality measure performance goals. Malnutrition QIPs like the Malnutrition Quality Improvement Initiative (MQii) have been shown to be effective in identifying and treating malnutrition. However, little is known about or has been reported on nutrition or malnutrition-focused QIPs in cancer care. This paper provides information to support translational research on quality improvement and outlines the gaps and potential opportunities for QIPs in the nutrition support of patients with cancer.


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