Supportive care centers: definition of excellence.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The current review is relevant because despite significant progress in oncology, a large proportion of patients with cancer still experience morbidity and symptoms, resulting from the cancer and/or its treatment.

RECENT FINDINGS

The main theme concerns the definition of excellence of Supportive Care centers based on the indications of the Multinational Association Supportive Care Cancer (MASCC) because there are no data in literature on this topic.

SUMMARY

Supportive care centers provide assistance to cancer patients suffering for anticancer treatments-related adverse effects. This leads to patient management with immediate evaluation and treatment of symptoms and therefore with improvement of quality of life and survival. In addition, there is less use of emergency room and hospitalizations with consequent savings of resources. According to MASCC evaluation criteria, some types of centers could be excellent in supportive care in cancer. Size, number of treated patients, or academic presence are not mandatory for the certification of excellence. However, centrality of patient and assessment of patient's needs, dedicated organizational models to evaluate and treat the adverse effects of anticancer treatments, dedicated activity and multidisciplinary staff, teaching programs, and adherence to guidelines are milestones for good clinical practices and consequently the centers that practice them represent the excellence in supportive care in cancer.