Abstract Background The primary aim of specialised palliative care (SPC) is to improve the quality of life (QoL) for patients with a high symptom burden from a life-threatening disease. This randomised study aimed to assess the QoL impact of early integration of SPC alongside tumour-specific palliative treatment in patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. Methods We randomly assigned ambulatory patients with advanced GI cancer to early integration of SPC and palliative tumour-specific treatment or tumour-speci…