Open AccessOnco-Anaesthesiology and palliative medicine: Opportunities and challenges
Author(s) -
Pranay Jain,
Kalpana Balkrishanan,
Smrutiranjan Nayak,
Nishkarsh Gupta,
Shagun Bhatia Shah
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
indian journal of anaesthesia/indian journal of anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.645
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 0976-2817
pISSN - 0019-5049
DOI - 10.4103/ija.ija_1556_20
Subject(s) - medicine , multidisciplinary approach , palliative care , radiation oncology , intensive care medicine , psychological intervention , curriculum , radiation therapy , nursing , psychology , social science , pedagogy , sociology
Global cancer burden is on the rise and many more patients present for surgery or other oncological diagnostic or therapeutic interventions requiring anaesthesia. Oncology therapy is unique as it requires a multidisciplinary team of surgical, medical and radiation oncologists apart from palliative medicine (PM) specialists, and anaesthesiologists. Anaesthetic management can affect the outcome of oncology treatment both by ensuring early return to oncology treatment and some anaesthetic techniques being innately associated with recurrence. Hence, the time has come for a separate super-speciality of onco-anaesthesiology to cater to the complex unmet needs of cancer patients. PM is the fourth dimension of oncology care and so mandatory education and training should be included in the undergraduate curriculum.