Review Article
The Role of Thoracic Surgery in Palliative Care: A Review
Jacob A. Klapper and Betty C. Tong*Department of Surgery / Cardiovascular and Thoracic, DUMC 3531 Durham, NC 27710, United States
- *Corresponding Author:
- Dr. Betty Tong
Department of Surgery / Cardiovascular and Thoracic
DUMC 3531 Durham, NC 27710, United States of America
Tel: 919-613-4690
Fax: 919-684-8508
E-mail: betty.tong@duke.edu
Received date: October 17, 2012; Accepted date: October 29, 2012; Published date: November 01, 2012
Citation: Klapper JA, Tong BC (2012) The Role of Thoracic Surgery in Palliative Care: A Review. J Palliative Care Med 2:133. doi:10.4172/2165-7386.1000133s
Copyright: © 2012 Klapper JA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The goal of palliative surgery, like that of palliative care in general, is to relieve symptoms and suffering due to a disease state, rather than curing the disease itself. Perhaps more so than other palliative interventions, patients and providers considering palliative surgery must carefully weigh the risks of the intervention with the intended benefit. The purpose of this article is to describe the variety of palliative operations performed by Thoracic surgeons as well as the indications and outcomes for these procedures.
