Journal of palliative medicine
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The evidence base to support palliative care clinical practice is inadequate and opportunities to improve the palliative care evidence base remain despite the field's rapid growth. ⋯ Despite the challenging NIH funding climate, NIH funding to palliative care remained stable. The increase in early stage career development funding, palliative care investigators, and palliative medicine research published in nonpalliative medicine journals reflects important advances to address the workforce and evidence gaps. Further support for palliative care research is still needed.
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One goal of pediatric palliative care is to maintain quality of life for children and their families. Quality-of-life investigations may be enhanced by considering clinically important metrics in addition to statistical significance. ⋯ In considering quality-of-life analyses for pediatric palliative care programmatic improvements, providers may consider analyzing not only for statistical significance in collective data sets but also for clinically important difference over time.
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The vast majority of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer present with advanced-stage disease with a five-year survival rate less than 50%. Studies have shown that in the past, gynecologic oncologists were not routinely collaborating with palliative care physicians resulting in goals of care planning often not occurring until the last 30 days before death. ⋯ We brought together a team of gynecologic oncology and palliative care experts to collate practical pearls for the care of women with epithelial ovarian cancer. In this article, we use a "Top 10" format to highlight issues that may help palliative care physicians understand a patient's prognosis, address common misconceptions about ovarian cancer, and improve the quality of shared decision making and goals-of-care discussions.