At Global Voices in Renal Oncology (VIRO) 2025, organized by OncoDaily, Dr. Elizabeth Wulff-Burchfield, Associate Professor and Medical Oncologist at the University of Kansas Health System, delivered a talk on “Palliative Care Integration in Advanced RCC”.
She highlighted that palliative care is not limited to end-of-life settings, but rather is an essential component of cancer care that can and should be provided alongside conventional oncology treatments. Drawing on the definition from the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), she highlighted its role in relieving physical, emotional, and psychosocial symptoms for patients and their families, through an interdisciplinary team that often extends beyond the traditional oncology structure.
Dr. Wulff-Burchfield noted that palliative care improves quality of life, symptom management, satisfaction with care, and appropriate hospice use—without reducing survival. She distinguished between specialty palliative care, delivered by trained experts, and primary palliative care, which involves skills that all oncologists and clinicians can and should integrate into daily practice. Given the global shortage of trained palliative care specialists, she underscored the importance of equipping all cancer providers with communication tools and symptom management strategies.
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