{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Role of Specialty Palliative Care in Cancer Surgery: Rebecca Aslakson & Myrick Shinall","description":"Recent randomized controlled trials have shown that routine perioperative palliative care does not improve outcomes for patients undergoing curative-intent cancer surgery. No, that wasn\u2019t a typo. Regardless of how the data were analyzed, the findings remained consistent: perioperative palliative care DID NOT improve outcomes in the only two randomized controlled trials conducted in this area\u2014the SCOPE and PERIOP-PC trials. Null trials like these often receive less attention in academic and clinical settings, but they can be profoundly practice-changing. Consider the Shannon Carson study on palliative care for chronically critically ill patients. While some have argued it \u201cwasn\u2019t a palliative care study,\u201d I\u2019ve always regarded it as one of the most significant studies for understanding not what works\u2014but what doesn\u2019t\u2014for palliative care in specific patient populations. The same holds true for the SCOPE and PERIOP-PC trials. Both were null, but their findings are deeply relevant to clinical practice. That\u2019s why we invited the lead authors, Rebecca Aslakson (PERIOP-PC) and Myrick \u201cRicky\u201d Shinall (SCOPE), to share insights into what they did in their studies and why they think they got the results that they did. One key takeaway for me from this discussion was the idea that patients undergoing curative-intent surgery might simply be too early in their cancer trajectory to derive meaningful benefits from palliative care, and maybe the focus should be more on geriatrics. I especially appreciated the closing discussion about the future of research in this area: if routine perioperative palliative care doesn\u2019t improve outcomes, what should the next generation of studies focus on? Eric Widera   Studies we talk about during the podcast Aslakson et al. Effect of Perioperative Palliative Care on Health-Related Quality of Life Among Patients Undergoing Surgery for Cancer: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Shinall et al. Effects of Specialist Palliative Care for Patients Undergoing Major Abdominal Surgery for Cancer: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Surg. 2023 Carson et al. Effect of Palliative Care\u2013Led Meetings for Families of Patients With Chronic Critical Illness: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2016 Holdsworth et al. Patient Experiences of Specialty Palliative Care in the Perioperative Period for Cancer Surgery. JPSM. 2024 Williams et al. Patient Perceptions of Specialist Palliative Care Intervention in Surgical Oncology Care. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2025  Yefimova et al. Palliative Care and End-of-Life Outcomes Following High-risk Surgery. JAMA Surg. 2020    ","author_name":"GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/www.geripal.org","html":"