Ensuring Ancillary Care Access to Bolster QOL in Pancreatic Cancer

In a conversation with CancerNetwork®, Rachit Kumar, MD, detailed the primary findings and implications of a study he published in Supportive Care in Cancer assessing how patient distance from a tertiary center may affect receipt of ancillary services such as dietitian consultation and palliative care for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Data showed that patients living over 50 miles away from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine were significantly less likely to receive these ancillary services for their disease.

According to Kumar, these findings may inform strategies on bringing ancillary services to patients who live farther away from his institution, which may improve quality of life and help them get through treatment for PDAC.

Kumar is an assistant professor of radiation oncology and molecular radiation sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a radiation oncologist specializing in genitourinary and gastrointestinal cancers at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center for Sibley Memorial Hospital and Suburban Hospital.

Transcript:

What we basically found in that important study is that patients who are coming from farther away do not have easy access to important ancillary care services that patients need for their quality of life during care. [These include] things like nutrition services and palliative care services. Additional things that we know that our patients will use to make their quality of life better and to help get them through treatment may not be as readily available the farther away the patients are, so how does that help us? It helps us decide if we need to expand our footprint to try to provide those services farther away and to help guide patients to how they may access those services closer to home. Both of those are going to be important things for patients. When they’re not close to a large cancer center, how can we make sure that they’re still getting all these appropriate services? We know receipt of those services also helps patients finish treatment. This is not an easy treatment, and we want to make sure that we’re helping them get to the finish line. That helps us make sure they get there.

Reference

Myneni R, Pathak P, Hacker-Prietz A, He J, Kumar R, Narang AK. Effect of travel distance on utilization of ancillary services among patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a single institution study. Support Care Cancer. 2025;33(4):282. doi:10.1007/s00520-025-09339-3