supportive care in oncology at the present time cancer can be cured in about 50 of the patients mainly through surgical procedures associated or not with radiotherapy andor chemotherapy for the rest of these patients therapy will only be palliative in other words these patients will not be cured but radiation therapy andor chemotherapy will control the symptoms of the neoplastic disease and improve the survival in a substantial proportion of them in those patients it is essential to weight the benefits and the risks of such palliative therapies in order to maintain an optimal quality of life supportive care is aiming at the control of all the manifestations associated with specific treatment of cancer the nature of supportive care changes as the neoplastic disease progresses eventually it will consist only of measures providing optimal comfort to the patients