Radiation Oncology In Palliative Cancer Care

Radiation Oncology in Palliative Cancer Care represents the first dedicated attempt in book form to address the glaring absence of a well-written palliative radiation therapy reference and textbook that provides a template for the end-of-life care of patients who require intervention by Radiation Oncologists as well as Hospice and Palliative Medicine Professionals working together. Palliative radiotherapy will gain increasing importance in the provision of end-of-life care for cancer patients in the coming years, and there is an immediate need for an instructive reference and textbook to guide this growth.

Even in developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, palliative care professionals believe that radiation therapy is important for their common cancer patients. Yet while they do have ready access to radiation oncology specialists and facilities, only about half of them feel sufficiently trained to identify situations where palliative radiotherapy might be most useful. The initial five chapters of the book provide readers unfamiliar with the specifics of Radiation Oncology a framework from which they can gain the most clinical knowledge out of the ensuing treatment-oriented chapters. Meanwhile, most radiation oncologists engaged in the palliative use of radiotherapy are not fully trained and up to date in overall principles and techniques of palliation and symptom control. Five chapters in this book deal with these issues and serve to augment the radiation oncologist’s education in a way that helps to make up for any absence of the provision of this knowledge in their training programs.

The book also addresses the challenges of providing proper palliative radiotherapy care in developing countries, where the problems are different and can be even more difficult to surmount. Economically disadvantaged countries lack the resources to provide a sufficient number radiotherapy centers to serve their populations, with technological advances placing the newest generations of treatment machines further from the reach of disadvantaged locales. Even in countries with a reasonable number of facilities, the travel burdens placed upon patients who need to be evaluated and treated by doctors in these centers may be prohibitive.

Stephen Lutz is one of only a small number of Radiation Oncologists who is also board certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine.?He has served as the liaison between the US radiotherapy and palliative care communities for the past several years. His main research interests have included the formation of palliative radiotherapy treatment guidelines as well as the collaboration between the two specialties with regard to research, education, and patient advocacy.

Edward Chow is a Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto?and is a senior scientist in the Sunnybrook Research Institute. He is Chair of the Rapid Response Radiotherapy Program and Bone Metastases Site Group in the Odette Cancer Center at?Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Peter Hoskin is a UK clinical oncologist with long standing research interests in palliative radiotherapy, in particular the management of bone metastases and spinal cord compression. He was a clinical research fellow in Palliative Medicine working in opioid pharmacology before focusing his interests in clinical oncology and was Chair of the International Consensus in Palliative Radiotherapy in 2000 and ESTRO Co-chair in 2010. He has written extensively on the role of radiotherapy in palliative care in original publications and major book chapters.