Supportive/palliative care in cancer patients: quo vadis?

Supportive care in cancer has become a paradigm for the treatment in oncology. Now, we have guidelines and active research in that field, making this area of clinical oncology both authoritative and rapidly progressing.The present paper focuses on the clinical experience of a group involved with supportive care in cancer patients for more than 25 years; it is hoped that our considerations might be helpful for further developments in this concept.