Early palliative intervention for patients with advanced cancer.

Background: Early palliative intervention in advanced cancer patients with metastatic non-small-cell-lung cancer has been shown to improve survival time. Possibly, palliative intervention at the time of outpatient care further improves patient survival time.

Objective: We performed a comparative study of late and early referrals of patients with advanced cancer to clarify the appropriate time for palliative intervention and the improvement in survival time.

Psychological problems for non-Japanese speaking patients in Japan.

The psychological problems of non-Japanese people are becoming more outstanding, in accordance with the increase of foreign nationals in Japan. Five illustrative cases of English-speaking patients were analyzed, from the viewpoint of psychosomatic medicine. The most common psychiatric disorders were adjustment disorders, because of the cultural differences and language barriers.