Palliative Care for the Late-Stage Cancer Patient During the COVID-19 Era: A Report of the Challenges

Abstract

Objective: To report the main factors of oncological palliative care in the late-stage cancer patient affected during the pandemic of COVID-19, as recognized by the international medical community. Methods: We followed the PRISMA guidelines and searched on the electronic database PubMed using the search terms: palliative care, neoplasms, cancer, pandemic, and quality of life. We excluded articles of recommendations and guidelines, opinion articles, conference abstracts, or articles published before March 11 th , 2020, the official WHO date of the COVID-19 pandemic.Results: Seven studies satisfied the inclusion criteria of 1,400. Those research articles are from Norway,