Effect of Outpatient Symptom Management on Gynecologic Oncology Patients Receiving Chemotherapy

Patients with gynecologic malignancies often have a high prevalence of symptoms throughout their disease course including fatigue, pain, anxiety and depression. Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual." The University of Michigan Symptom Management and Supportive Care Program works together with patient's oncology team to manage cancer related and treatment related symptoms. They offer a wide range of services including: pain and symptom management, medication management, nutritional counseling, expedited access to psychiatric oncology, anesthesia pain service and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Studies have demonstrated an improvement in quality of life, symptom burden and patient/care giver satisfaction when palliative care is part of routine oncologic care. Currently, in gynecologic oncology, palliative care is incorporated on a case by case basis, instead of in a standardized approach. We hope this study will provide a standardized tool to identify gynecologic oncology patients receiving chemotherapy who would benefit from a referral to a symptom management clinic. This study will provide a screening mechanism to identify advanced stage or recurrent gynecologic oncology chemotherapy patients with palliative care needs and determine which symptom management option provides the best improvement in symptom burden, that performed by a specialty clinic staffed by providers formally trained in palliative care or that provided by the patient's gynecologic oncologist. This study has the potential to change practice by providing a triage tool that will identify patients that will most benefit from specialty palliative care services and could result in improved quality of life for our patients.