Practical aspects of palliative care & palliative radiotherapy in incurable cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among economically disadvantaged women. The symptoms of pain, discharge, constipation, foul smell, insomnia and depression can be controlled with inexpensive medicines such as oral morphine, maintenance oral metronidazole, antidepressants and laxatives. These medications should be prescribed according to the palliative care guidelines and titrated to the individual patient’s clinical response, pathophysiology, and metabolic parameters. A hypothetical clinical scenario illustrates some aspects of pain and symptom management, inter-disciplinary palliative care, medical ethics and communication needs in low-resource settings. Palliative radiotherapy is a cost-effective intervention to reduce vaginal discharge, bleeding, pressure effects and nociceptive or neuropathic pain caused by pelvic and para-aortic disease. The role of palliative radiotherapy in patients with malignant fistulae is discussed and the literature on hypo-fractionated pelvic radiotherapy is briefly reviewed.