Primary and Specialist Palliative Care in Neurosurgery: A Narrative Review and Bibliometric Analysis of Glioblastoma and Stroke

Objective: Due to the increased demand for palliative care (PC) in recent years, a model has been proposed to divide PC into primary PC and specialist PC. This article aimed to delineate the indications for primary and specialist PC within 2 common neurosurgical conditions—glioblastoma (GBM) and stroke. Methods: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis was conducted to better appreciate the practice trends in PC utilization for GBM and stroke patients using several databases. Results: There were 70 studies on PC for GBM, the majority of which related to patient preference (22 [31%]). During 1999–2022, there was significant growth in publications per year on this topic at a rate of approximately 0.3 publications per year (P < 0.01). There were 44 studies on PC for stroke, the majority of which related to communication strategies (14 [32%]). During 1999–2022, there was no significant growth in stroke publications per year (P = 0.22). Conclusions: Due to the progressively disabling neurological course of GBM, we suggest that a specialty PC team be used in conjunction with the neurosurgical team early in the disease trajectory while patients are still able to communicate their preferences, goals, and values. In contrast, short-term and long-term stages of management of stroke have differing implications for PC needs, with the short-term stage necessitating adept, time-sensitive communication between the patient, family, and care teams. Thus, we propose that primary PC should be included as a core competency in neurosurgery training, among other stroke specialists.