Purpose of review: There is a general misconception that surgery is the antithesis of palliation. However, symptom mitigation, the basic tenet of palliative interventions, can be achieved by invasive procedures. Surgical care, thus, plays an important role in palliative oncology, alongside radiation and systemic therapy. There is global movement to improve palliation in oncology, and thus it is timely to evaluate the role of surgical interventions can play in this setting.
Recent findings: Many of the surgical interventions done with palliative intent were first established as curative options. Most studies looked at interventions for local control of primary tumour including extirpative surgeries, while some studies studied pain relief for bone metastases. Results show that patients have an acceptable survival outcome and complication rate comparable to those done in the curative setting. However, not all studies report functional outcomes and symptom-relief consistently, highlighting an unmet need.
Summary: More studies are needed to further define the role of surgery in palliative care. Randomized controlled trials studying surgical intervention in the palliative setting will be challenging because of lack of equipoise, inherent bias in patient and disease characteristics in those who undergo surgery. Nonetheless, studies should endeavour to study symptom-free survival and PROMs as meaningful endpoints of interventions performed in a palliative setting rather than solely focus on hard oncological endpoints of survival.
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