Treatment Recommendations for Respiratory Symptoms in Cancer Patients: Clinical Guidelines from the Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine.

BACKGROUND: Respiratory symptoms, dyspnea, cough, and death rattle, are common and distressing in advanced cancer patients. Palliation of respiratory symptoms is important to improve quality of life in cancer patients and their families/caregivers. Currently published clinical guidelines for the management of these respiratory symptoms in cancer patients did not cover the topics comprehensively or were not based on formal process for the development of clinical guidelines.

METHODS: The Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine (JSPM) decided to develop comprehensive clinical guidelines for the management of respiratory symptoms in cancer patients following the formal guideline developing process.

RESULTS: This article provides a summary of the recommendations with the rationales, as well as a short summary of the developing process, of the JSPM respiratory symptom management guidelines. We established 26 recommendations and all recommendations are based on the best available evidences and expert consensus.

DISCUSSION: More future clinical researches and continuous guideline updates are required to improve the quality of respiratory symptom management in cancer patients.