At what point in a pediatric patient's cancer treatment should palliative care teams become involved in their care?

I believe palliative care involvement for newly diagnosed children with cancer should be the rule, not the exception. The concept of early involvement of palliative care teams for newly diagnosed patients with cancer stems largely from a landmark paper in the New England Journal of Medicine 10 years...

While I agree with Dr. @Dr. First Last about the values of early palliative care consultations, I do not believe in triggers to a consultation. I believe that the patients described in the article should be considered for consultation. There are times when consultation should be delayed.

Although the concept of starting at diagnosis is sound, on a practical level almost all palliative care programs do not or will not have sufficient staff in the foreseeable future to follow all patients. Furthermore, checking in once, in the beginning, is not a very useful use of personnel if the pa...