[Cancer and palliative care].

Palliative care is the active, total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatments. The term "palliative care" refers to those aspects of medical care concerned with the physical, psychosocial and spiritual issues faced by persons with cancer, their families, their communities, and their healthcare providers. At its core, palliative care is concerned with providing the maximum quality of life to the patient/family unit. This growing area of medicine is often practiced in inpatients units, with a transitional approach that involves sending some patients home with home hospice care. This is a very patient-centered, multidisciplinary method of caring for dying patient.