Haematology and palliative medicine: moving forward

Cheng and associates (1) are to be congratulated for their contribution to the emerging literature on the integration of palliative care and haematology. Their paper, Intensive palliative care for patients with haematological cancer dying in hospice: Analysis of the level of Medical Care in the final week of life, provides an important new dimension to the literature in this area. The documentation of details on the provision of medical care in the palliative care setting not only provides useful baseline information for clinical consideration and debate, but signals that the scholarship in this area has come of age. The focus for research literature has taken an important step forward. Previously the research literature predominantly centred on the question of whether palliative medicine could or should be integrated into the care of haematology patients. The assumption is now in the affirmative and the concern becomes how best to effectively achieve this end. The sharing of descriptive clinical information on the provision of medical care in the palliative setting extends the analysis of integration to considerations of what is present practice and how this can be refined