Evaluating palliative opportunities in pediatric patients with leukemia and lymphoma.

Background: Despite favorable prognoses, pediatric patients with hematologic malignancies experience significant challenges that may lead to diminished quality of life or family stress. They are less likely to receive subspecialty palliative care (PC) consultation and often undergo intensive end-of-life (EOL) care. We examined "palliative opportunities," or events when the integration of PC would have the greatest impact, present during a patient's hematologic malignancy course and relevant associations.