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The NCCN Guidelines for Palliative Care provide interdisciplinary recommendations on palliative care for patients with cancer. The NCCN Guidelines are intended to provide guidance to the primary oncology team on the integration of palliative care into oncology. The NCCN Palliative Care Panel's recommendations seek to ensure that each patient experiences the best quality of life possible throughout the illness trajectory. Accordingly, the NCCN Guidelines outline best practices for screening, assessment, palliative care interventions, reassessment, and after-death care.

The NCCN Guidelines for Palliative Care provide interdisciplinary recommendations on palliative care for patients with cancer. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the NCCN panel’s discussions and guideline updates from 2013 and 2014. These include modifications/additions to palliative care screening and assessment protocols, new considerations for discussing the benefits and risks of anticancer therapy, and approaches to advance care planning. Recent updates focus on enhanced patient-centered care and seek to promote earlier integration of palliative care and advance care planning in oncology.

Overview In the United States, a total of 1,479,350 new cancer cases and 562,340 deaths from cancer were estimated to occur in 2009. 1 All patients experience some level of distress associated with the diagnosis and treatment of cancer at all stages of the disease. Surveys have found that 20% to 40% of patients with newly diagnosed and recurrent cancer show a significant level of distress. 2 However, fewer than 10% are actually identified and referred for psychosocial help. 3 Many cancer patients who are in need of psychosocial care are not able to get the help they need due to the under recognition of patient's psychological needs by the primary oncology team and lack of knowledge of community resources. The need is particularly acute in community oncology practices that have few to no psychosocial resources, and cancer care is often provided in short visits. 4 For many centuries, patients were not told their diagnosis of cancer because of the stigma attached to the disease. Since the 1970s, this situation has changed and patients are well aware of their diagnosis and treatment options. However, patients are reluctant to reveal emotional problems to the oncologist. The words psychological, psychiatric, and emotional are as stigmatizing as cancer. Psychological issues remain stigmatized even in the context of coping with cancer. Consequently, patients often do not tell their physicians about their distress and physicians do not inquire about the psychological concerns of their patients. Recognition of patients' distress has become more difficult as cancer care has shifted to the...

The integration of psychosocial care into the routine care of all patients with cancer is increasingly being recognized as the new standard of care. These NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Distress Management discuss the identification and treatment of psychosocial problems in patients with cancer. They are intended to assist oncology teams identify patients who require referral to psychosocial resources and to give oncology teams guidance on interventions for patients with mild distress to ensure that all patients with distress are recognized and treated.