Article
Telehealth Palliative Care Model Reports Benefits in Cancer Patients
The ENABLE trial, conducted in rural regions of Vermont and New Hampshire, reports a positive impact on the 1-year survival of advanced cancer patients. A parallel study, ENABLE III, reported benefits to caregivers following early introduction of palliative care in these advanced cancer patients.
Early concurrent palliative care (PC) in patients with advanced cancer had a significantly beneficial effect on 1-year survival, even for patients living in a remote rural setting, according to results from the ENABLE trial. The 1-year survival rate was 63% for those who received early PC compared with 48% in the group that received delayed care (15% difference, P = .038), reported J. Nicholas Dionne-Odom, PhD, of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and colleagues.
Most of the patients lived in rural New Hampshire or Vermont, making ENABLE "the only feasible and effective telehealth early [palliative care] model for patients with advanced cancer and family caregivers in a rural setting," the authors wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Link to the report on Medpage Today:
