Chemotherapy and supportive care are a winning combination

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Also Included In: Palliative Care / Hospice Care;  Colorectal Cancer
Article Date: 20 Jul 2004 - 15:00 PDT

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Gastrointestinal cancer, including colorectal, is one of the most common groups of cancers to claim Western lives.

Research is continuously conducted to determine the most effective ways to treat these cancers, taking into account both survival and quality of life. This includes research into supportive care, which included social, psychological and spiritual care as well as palliative medical treatment.

A recent review of the evidence for supportive care in addition to chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone for gastrointestinal cancer concluded that a combination of certain types of chemotherapyand supportive care, provide the best outcomes in terms of survival and quality of life.

Supportive care and palliative care are newly developing fields. Their definition and administration vary significantly from country to country and even within one country. This is apparent in the trials in the review.

However, the evidence in this systematic review makes an important contribution towards developing definitive, uniform standards for comprehensive supportive care.

Authors of the review state: "Adding comprehensive supportive care to chemotherapy for gastrointestinal cancer improves patients' outcomes. There is a need for standardising supportive care interventions to enable more patients to benefit. "

Review title: Supportive care for patients with
gastrointestinal cancer
Reviewers: Ahmed N, Ahmedzai S, Vora V, Hillam S and Paz S.

The Cochrane Library contains high quality health care information, including Systematic Reviews from The Cochrane Collaboration. These bring together research on the effects of health care and are considered the gold standard for determining the relative effectiveness of different interventions. The Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org) is a UK registered international charity and the world's leading producer of systematic reviews, which form the building blocks of evidence-based medical decision-making.

A number of countries have national provisions by which some or all of their residents are able to access The Cochrane Library for free. These include:

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To find out whether your country is included and how to get access, please visit http://www.update-software.com/cochrane/provisions.htm

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Contact: David Greenberg
Tel: 201-748-6484
Email: dgreenbe@wiley.com

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