Quality of life and symptom intensity over time in people with cancer receiving palliative care: Results from the international European Palliative Care Cancer Symptom study.

While the prospective approach showed predominantly stable patterns for quality of life, functioning and symptom severity throughout study duration, retrospective analyses indicated that deterioration was already apparent before the terminal phase and accelerated close to death. Our findings support the importance of early symptom identification and treatment in this population, and highlight the need for further studies to explore what characterizes those with either lower or higher symptom burden at different time points towards death.