Part of the Integrating Palliative Care series, this volume on surgical palliative care guides readers through the core palliative skills and knowledge needed to deliver high value care for patients with life-limiting, critical, and terminal illness under surgical care. Surgical Palliative Care is an ideal resource for surgeons, surgical nurses, intensivists, and other practitioners who wish to learn more about integrating palliative care into the surgical field.

Palliative surgery can greatly contribute to improving symptom control and quality of life for terminal cancer patients. Owing to the advanced stage of the disease, however, this type of surgery is also associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It is therefore important for surgeons to have a sound understanding of the medical and scientific background underlying treatment decisions in palliative surgery, a foundation that this book provides. The opening chapters examine the relationship between palliative medicine and palliative surgery and address general issues including pain management and anesthesiological considerations. The role of palliative surgery in a wide range of disease settings is then thoroughly explored, including detailed information on surgical techniques and their indications and outcomes. This book will be an invaluable resource for all who wish to learn more about the emerging role of palliative surgery.

This book covers all essential evidence on perioperative care and anesthetic concerns for cancer surgeries, including the evaluation and assessment of patients’ schedule for cancer surgeries, perioperative anesthetic management of various cancers, perioperative analgesia for cancer surgeries, and issues related to inoperable cancers. It reviews anesthetic considerations of all cancer types as there is a wide variation in anesthetic requirements in this subset of patients. Cancer surgeries are on the rise worldwide and healthcare facilities with cancer as a core specialty are emerging quickly around the globe. As cancer is on rise and efficient surgical management is available, more and more patients are being treated surgically. However, cancer surgeries are complicated, have varied concerns and these are not covered sufficiently in presently available textbooks of anesthesiology. This book fulfills the growing need for complete and comprehensive textbook of onco-anesthesia and fills the gap in the current texts that do not exclusively cover anesthesia for cancer surgeries. This textbook serves as a comprehensive but quick guide for trainee residents/fellows and practicing anesthesiologists, clinicians and surgeons.

This book provides a detailed guide to the ethical considerations involved when making decisions in surgery. Chapters feature a uniform format, which feature a case that represents a real-life problem, discussion of the medical indications of that issue, the latest available medical solutions, and related ethical considerations. In some cases, more in-depth debate is provided on why a particular decision should or should not be made based-upon ethical principles. Information boxes containing key statements and relevant data in clear easy-to-digest tables facilitates the reader in being able to assimilate the most important points covered in each chapter. Difficult Decisions in Surgical Ethics: An Evidence-Based Approach is a thorough review of ethical considerations in a range of surgical scenarios encompassing both adult and pediatric topics, training surgical residents, ethical care during a pandemic, critical care, palliative care, sensitivity to religious and ethnic mores, clinical research, and innovation. It is intended to be a vital resource for practicing and trainee surgeons seeking a comprehensive up-to-date resource on ethical topics in surgical practice. The work is part of the Difficult Decisions in Surgery series covering a range of surgical specialties.

Gastric cancer has been one of the great malignant scourges affecting man kind for as long as medical records have been kept. Until operative resection pioneered by Bilroth and others became available, no effective treatment was feasible and death from cancer was virtually inevitable. Even with resection by total gastrectomy, the chances of tumor eradication remained small. Over recent years, however, the situation has been changing. Some changes have resulted from better understanding of the disease, early detec tion, and better management techniques with applied clinical research, but the reasons for other changes are poorly understood. For example, the incidence of gastric cancer is decreasing, especially in westernized societies, where it has fallen from one of the most common cancers to no longer being in the top five causes of cancer death. Still it remains the number one killer of adult males in Japan and Korea. Whether the reduced incidence in western societies is a result of dietary changes or methods of food preservation, or some other reason, is as yet uncertain. Improvements in outcome have been reported from mass screening and early detection; more refined techniques of establishing early diagnosis, tumor type, and tumor extent; more radical surgical resection; and resection at earlier stages of disease.

Surgical Palliative Care describes the principles and practice of surgery in the context of palliative and supportive care. Surgery is often considered too invasive to be useful in palliation and clinicians instinctively turn to radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and other drugs. Surgery, withincreasingly minimal access techniques, may be simpler and less invasive than other treatments and produces excellent palliation. Indeed, most types of surgery are not curative and the aim of this book is to alert all concerned with palliative care to the usefulness and appropriateness of a surgicaloption. The text is divided into two sections; the first dealing with general issues, varying from quality of life measurement to spirituality, and the second illustrating their application in different specialties of surgery ranging from neurosurgery to urology. The book ends with a challenge to surgeonsto change their perspective from curative surgery, in terms of simply cure or failure, to improvement in quality of life and relief of symptoms. Aimed primarily at palliative medicine and pain consultants, this book will also appeal to surgeons who increasingly need to know more about palliativecare.

Symptom control, management of psychosocial and spiritual concerns, decision-making consistent with values and goals, and care of the imminently dying that is appropriate and sensitive are among the critical issues in palliative care. This book explores progress made and future goals.