Supportive Care Department

The Department of Supportive Care is currently the first subspecialty department in China established on the basis of a Grade III-A specialized oncology hospital. The department has consistently upheld internationally advanced concepts of diagnosis and treatment, providing patients and their families/caregivers with whole-person, whole-family, and whole-course care, as well as comprehensive treatment and compassionate support addressing the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions. The work of the Department of Supportive Care includes providing cancer patients at all stages with information about their disease and diagnosis and treatment; analyzing the disease; weighing the benefits and drawbacks of treatment; helping patients and their families make treatment decisions; providing palliative medical treatment for the disease; relieving symptoms and suffering; promoting multidisciplinary consultation (multi-disciplinary treatment, MDT); and designing a “personally customized” plan for managing the entire diagnostic and treatment process for each patient. It brings together the expertise of multidisciplinary specialists, with the aim of focusing on and improving patients’ quality of life and thereby prolonging survival. It mainly provides assessment, monitoring, control, and management for patients who experience discomfort during or after surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or immunotherapy, including pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, constipation, myelosuppression, and other treatment-related adverse reactions; for patients who have no indication for surgery and/or radiotherapy or chemotherapy, cannot tolerate the adverse reactions of radiotherapy or chemotherapy, or are informed immediately upon discovery of the tumor that they have advanced disease (widespread metastases), palliative care is used as the principal approach, with the treatment goal of alleviating or eliminating discomfort, and patients are provided with symptomatic and supportive (nutritional and comfort-focused) treatment; at the same time, continuous care and services are provided to patients and their families from beginning to end. In addition, the department provides hospice treatment and counseling concerning a dignified death for patients with end-stage cancer. The department has consistently advocated providing support for patients’ treatment and daily life outside the hospital, cooperating with hospitals in the medical alliance, and exploring tiered diagnosis and treatment, consistent management, and other approaches to enhance continuity of care, thereby providing practical assistance to patients and benefiting their families from the hospital to the primary-care level. The main work of the Department of Supportive Care includes: cancer-prevention health examinations and screening; providing information related to disease and treatment; management of symptoms and adverse reactions; palliative chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy for advanced cancer; integrated/comprehensive treatment of advanced cancer; management of cancer survivors; and counseling for hospice care. Upholding the service mission of Beijing Cancer Hospital and putting people first, the department provides patients with comprehensive medical care and services from multiple dimensions. In addition, as members of the internal medicine group of the Head and Neck Tumor MDT at Beijing Cancer Hospital, department members participate in the screening, diagnosis, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and other comprehensive treatments for head and neck tumors, including thyroid cancer; oral cancers such as tongue cancer; oropharyngeal cancer; laryngeal cancer; nasopharyngeal cancer; salivary gland tumors (such as adenoid cystic carcinoma of the parotid gland); and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma of unknown primary.