Symptom control and palliative care content of abstracts presented at the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncologists annual meetings.

Abstract

Half of all patients referred for radiotherapy are treated with palliative intent. Recent emphasis has been placed on the importance of symptom control and palliative care (SCPC) in the radiation oncology community. The purpose of this study was to determine the number of abstracts relating to SCPC presented at the annual Canadian Association of Radiation Oncologists (CARO) meetings, and whether this number has increased over time. SCPC abstracts presented at CARO from 1992 through 2002 were counted. Abstracts were included if they described a patient population with advanced or metastatic cancer treated with palliative intent. Abstracts were then categorized as reporting treatment outcomes, health services research, descriptive studies or literature reviews. Radiation treatment sites were recorded. An average of 6.7% (60/892; range 0-16.2%) of all abstracts presented at CARO from 1992 through 2002 pertained to SCPC. There was a significant increase in the proportion of SCPC abstracts accepted over time ( P=0.0012). Descriptive studies accounted for 46.7%, treatment outcomes 31.7%, health services research 13.3%, and literature reviews 8.3% of the SCPC abstracts. Bone metastases (48.3%), primary lung tumors (11.7%), and brain metastases (10.0%) were the most common treatment sites. Of all the SCPC abstracts, 45% came from dedicated palliative radiotherapy clinics. SCPC research is poorly represented at the annual CARO conferences. Research in this field should be promoted as the palliative patient population represents a large component of radiotherapy clinical practice. The recent emergence of dedicated palliative radiotherapy clinics should continue to increase palliative radiotherapy research.