The role of supportive care in quality of life.

Supportive care interventions are usually given with the intent of improving quality of life. Until recently, however, even studies of palliative interventions have infrequently incorporated some measure of overall benefit. This article reviews those recent supportive care studies that have attempted to measure either quality of life or some benefit other than improvement in a single symptom. Some palliative chemotherapy studies did indeed demonstrate measurable improvement in overall well-being, and some commonly cited supportive approaches were associated with a significant detriment in health-related quality of life.