Background: Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the world. This results in that cancer is one of the most common reasons to palliative care. Nurses play a important part in palliative care for patients with cancer, it's their responsibility to increase patients quality of life and to relieve patients suffering.

Aim: The aim was to describe nurse's experiences of caring for patients with cancer disease at a palliative stage.

Method: A literature-based study was used. Ten qualitative articles were found systematically, two qualitative articles were found unsystematically, all were analyzed according to Fribergs five-step model.

Results: The result was built on three main themes: it affects my life, meeting that touches and a worthy ending. The three main themes resulted in nine subthemes. The nurses felt privileged over being a part of patient's end of life, and it caused the nurses to reflect about their own values and personal life. The nurses wanted to maintain patients hope, but were afraid to inspire to much unrealistic hope. They also wanted to help the patients fulfil their last wishes and make a difference in how patients spent their last days.

Conclusions: The results shows that nurses are affected by this kind of work, both positively and negatively. It causes the nurses to feel stress and anxiety, but they also feel that the work is rewarding and appreciated.