Supportive Care for Patients Newly Diagnosed With Lung Cancer

Patients meeting entry criteria will be randomized to the intervention arm, palliative care plus usual care or the usual care arm. Patients randomized to the intervention arm will receive usual oncologic care and phone calls from a nurse. Outcomes measures will be collected at baseline, and 3 months. The study will be performed at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. The investigators will recruit individuals (n=40) with lung cancer over 1 year. The primary objective is to test the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, and recruitment of subjects. The investigators will estimate the effect of a nurse-led telephone based palliative care intervention to improve quality-of-life, symptom burden and patient satisfaction. In addition, using validated instruments, the investigators will assess the potential effect size of the intervention on quality of provider communication and on clinician knowledge of patient preferences for life sustaining therapies. The results of this pilot study will inform a future randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of the intervention on a larger scale.