Real World Status of Palliative Care for Pancreatic Cancer Patients in China-a National Multi-center Cross-sectional Survey

Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant gastrointestinal tumor with only a 10% overall 5-year survival rate. More than 80% of patients are already in the advanced stage when diagnosed, losing the chance of surgery. Advanced pancreatic cancer progresses rapidly and chemoradiotherapy has limited efficacy, so palliative care is thought to play an important role in the treatment process. However, due to the late development of palliative care, there is a lack of data on real-world clinical palliative care for pancreatic cancer patients in China.

This study investigates the real-world current status of palliative care for pancreatic cancer patients by sending a web questionnaire to the doctors from the Department of General Surgery in more than 100 public tertiary teaching hospitals and about 350 public primary care units in the Chinese mainland. The survey aims to obtain the real status of palliative care and achieve a comprehensive understanding of how to develop palliative care in hospitals.

The questionnaire includes both subjective standards like the surgeons' opinion on the development of palliative therapy and objective standards such as dedicated beds and teams for palliative care.