Early Palliative Care for Patients With Multiple Myeloma and Aggressive Lymphoma

Summary

Patients with multiple myeloma experience a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms from the time of their diagnosis. Meanwhile, patients with aggressive lymphomas undergo unpredictable illness courses, resulting in goals of care conversations occurring late in the illness trajectory and aggressive care being received in the last 30 days of life. Early palliative care alongside usual cancer care has been shown to improve patient outcomes such as symptom burden, mood, and quality of life in patients with solid tumours (e.g. lung, breast or gynecological cancers), but has not been explored among patients with blood cancers to date.

The goal of this clinical trial is to a brief early palliative care intervention for patients with multiple myeloma and aggressive B cell lymphoma and their caregivers (lymphoma only) attending the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. The main goals of the study are:

* To see if it is possible to apply the early palliative care intervention for patients with multiple myeloma and aggressive lymphoma and their caregivers (lymphoma only)
* To see if this early palliative care intervention works well for these patients and caregivers
* To compare patient and caregiver experiences with early palliative care and usual care
* To explore perceptions and experiences of providing palliative care among healthcare providers involved in the care of these patients and caregivers.

Patients, and their respective caregivers if participating, will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group will receive early palliative care in addition to usual care from their blood cancer doctor, and the other group will receive usual care from their blood cancer doctor only. All participants will be asked to fill out questionnaires about their quality of life, symptom burden, mood, and satisfaction with care throughout the study. Researchers will compare the results between the two groups to see if there are any improvements in quality of life for the patients who received early palliative care and their caregivers.

Some patients and caregivers will be asked to take part in interviews at the end of the trial to answer questions about their experience taking part in the study. Some healthcare providers who care for these patients will also be asked to take part in interviews at the end of the trial to describe their perceptions and experiences of providing palliative care.

The researchers will use the results of this study to guide in the development of a larger clinical trial.

Conditions

• Multiple Myeloma in Relapse
• Multiple Myeloma, Refractory
• Multiple Myeloma Stage III
• Multiple Myeloma Progression
• Multiple Myeloma
• B Cell Lymphoma
• Lymphoma, B-Cell
• Aggressive Lymphoma

Interventions

OTHER

Early Palliative Care

see previous description

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Myeloma Canada

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University Health Network, Toronto

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Breffni Hannon, MB BCh BAO, MMedSci, MCFP · Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-07-18

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2027-06-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations