Development of palliative medicine for cancer patients in Japan: from isolated voluntary effort to integrated multidisciplinary network.

The paradigm of palliative care in cancer medicine has shifted from only care of terminally ill patients to earlier intervention for them in the recent 15 years. The concept of palliative medicine was founded in Japan in the 1970s. During the past 15 years, various new drugs and interventions have been introduced mainly for pain control, which is one of the major problems in the area of palliative medicine in cancer. According to the aim of the Cancer Control Act established in Japan (2006), patients and their families will be able to access easily integrated high-quality cancer care wherever they live at the time of 2016. Systematic and continuous education for medical staff is mandatory, and a major breakthrough for achieving this purpose would be to increase the number of courses and faculties in palliative medicine at most universities in Japan.