An interventional study of Palliative Care Referral System - PCRS in Advanced Cancer, sponsored by Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano. Completed at 1 site in Italy. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-07-08.
Sponsored by Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research
Early palliative care (EPC) in the clinical pathway of advanced cancer patients improves symptom control, quality of life and has a positive impact on overall quality of care. EPC contributes to realistic and attainable goals of treatment, facilitating patient choices, favouring adequate communication with patients and families and assessing patient values and preferences with regard to advance care planning. EPC is likely to promote a more appropriate use of health care resources and less aggressive cancer treatment in the last weeks of life. At present standardised criteria for appropriate referral for EPC in oncology outpatients setting are lacking. Therefore the aim of this project is to identify referral criteria and procedures to implement appropriate EPC for advanced patients (the Palliative Care Referral System) and test them in a pre-post experimental design evaluating their impact on quality of care and on the use of healthcare resources. A quasi-experimental, longitudinal, pretest-posttest study will be carried out. Two different cohorts of 150 advanced cancer patients each will be enrolled before (pretest) and after (posttest) the introduction of the PCRS in outpatient clinics of a Comprehensive Cancer Centre. Eligible patients will undergo patient-reported outcome measure (PROMs) evaluation at baseline and then monthly for at least 6 months from enrollment or till death. Use health care resources and quality of care indicators will be collected monthly by a dedicated research nurse.
As above.
Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano is the lead sponsor of 169 studies on the registry; 48 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
standard oncology care
standardized referral to outpatient palliative care by oncologists
Other: Palliative Care Referral System - PCRS
Implementation of a system to help oncologists to identify criteria for referring patients to specialized outpatient palliative care (Palliative Care Referral System - PCRS)
patient reported experience
patient satisfaction with care, measured with the FAMCARE-P13
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Health related quality of life
European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer - Quality of Life -Palliative Care questionnaire (Eortc QLQC15-PAL)
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
caregiver experience of care
Family Care Satisfaction scale (FAMCARE)
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Activation of a Palliative Care service
Number of regular outpatient Palliative Care visits
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Multidisciplinary team visits
Number of multidisciplinary team visits (Oncology and Palliative Care)
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Hospitalization
Number of hospitalizations
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Emergency department accesses
Number of accesses in Emergency departement
Time frame: through study completion, up to 6 months
Plan to share: No — not planned
This study is completed, as verified in Jul 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano