The Beginning
Bottom line: This is the big one. Palliative care existed before this trial, and it will linger after this data becomes irrelevant. However, you can't speak to the role of palliative care without mentioning this study. Read through it, think of its applicability to your own realm. Essentially, in patients with early metastatic cancer, this study helped show that engaging patients palliative care is useful for both improving both quality and quantity of life.
Personal use: Big Palliative Flex. I use it when people are worried palliative care is being used "too early". I also use it in conversation, mostly with oncologists, in that if I were an infusion instead of a person that Big Pharma would be spending lots of money putting my face on all sorts of commercials touting my use in extending life-expectancy by 2.7 months on average.
Look at that Kaplan-Meier Curve!
"Kaplan–Meier Estimates of Survival According to Study Group. Survival was calculated from the time of enrollment to the time of death, if it occurred during the study period, or to the time of censoring of data on December 1, 2009. Median estimates of survival were as follows: 9.8 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 7.9 to 11.7) in the entire sample (151 patients), 11.6 months (95% CI, 6.4 to 16.9) in the group assigned to early palliative care (77 patients), and 8.9 months (95% CI, 6.3 to 11.4) in the standard care group (74 patients) (P=0.02 with the use of the log-rank test). After adjustment for age, sex, and baseline Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, the group assignment remained a significant predictor of survival (hazard ratio for death in the standard care group, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.14 to 2.54; P=0.01). Tick marks indicate censoring of data."
References:
Temel, Jennifer S., et al. "Early palliative care for patients with metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer." New England Journal of Medicine 363.8 (2010): 733-742.