Feasibility of an Early Palliative Care Intervention for Metastatic Cancer Patients. A Phase 2 Study.

June 20, 2025 updated by: Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS
The objective of this phase 2 study is to evaluate the feasibility of an early palliative care intervention for metastatic cancer patients. Feasibility will be assessed in terms of percentage of patients that accept the proposal of the early palliative care intervention and that effectively start to be followed in the palliative care out-patient clinic. The study will be performed in a consecutive series of newly diagnosed patients affected by lung cancer (NSCLC or SCLC, stage IIIb, IV), mesothelioma (stage II, IV), pancreas (stage IV), stomach (stage IIIb-IV).

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

40

Phase

  • Phase 2

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Italy
      • Reggio Emilia, Italy, 42123
        • IRCCS Arcispedale S.Maria Nuova

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • patients within 8 weeks of cancer diagnosis confirmed by histology or cytology
  • lung cancer (NSCLC or SCLC) stage IIIb-IV OR mesothelioma stage III-IV OR pancreas cancer stage IV, OR gastric cancer stage IIIb-IV
  • age more than 18 years
  • performance status (ECOG) ≤ 2;
  • ability to read, understand and fill-in the questionnaires
  • written informed consent to the study

Exclusion Criteria:

  • any chemotherapy, radiotherapy or ormonotherapy for any tumour in the past 12 months

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: early palliative care programme
Patients will be proposed to be followed by the Palliative Care Team
Other: The early palliative care programme
The intervention consists of an early integration of a palliative care programme with the standard care performed by the oncologists-pneumologists that are following the cancer patients. The intervention will be delivered by the specialised Palliative Care Unit (PCU) of the hospital. Each patient meets the professionals of the PCU by 30 days by cancer diagnosis and at least monthly thereafter in the outpatint settings.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
percentage of cancer patients that accept and attend the early palliative care programme
Time Frame: up to 30 days after the diagnosis of cancer
percentage of eligible cancer patients that accept the proposal of the intervention (the early palliative care programme) and that, by 30 days after the diagnosis, effectively start to be followed by the Palliative Care Unit
up to 30 days after the diagnosis of cancer

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
percentage of cancer patients that receive the proposal of early palliative by the oncologists-pneumologists
Time Frame: up to 30 days after the diagnosis of cancer
percentage of newly diagnosed eligible cancer patients that receive the proposal of the itegrated early palliative care programme
up to 30 days after the diagnosis of cancer

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

July 1, 2013

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2014

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2014

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 1, 2014

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 3, 2014

First Posted (Estimated)

March 5, 2014

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

June 25, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 20, 2025

Last Verified

January 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • CE148/2012

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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