• Tomohisa Ohno, Fumiyo Tamura, Takeshi Kikutani, Tatsuya Morita, and Yasunori Sumi.
• 1 Department of Advanced Medicine Dentistry and Dental/OralSurgery, Japanese National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology , Obu, Japan .
• J Palliat Med. 2016 Aug 1; 19 (8): 879-82.

BackgroundThe oral food intake of terminally ill cancer patients is known to gradually decrease, but there are few reports about how oral intake changes around the terminal stage. It is important to clarify changes in oral food intake, as such changes affect the support and care of terminally ill cancer patients.ObjectiveWe aimed to clarify changes in oral food intake in terminally ill cancer patients during the last 2 weeks before death.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study was conducted at a designated cancer center hospital in Japan from January 2013 to June 2013. The subjects were recognized as clinically terminally ill cancer patients who were hospitalized for ≥14 days, and who had death as their reason for hospital discharge. One researcher investigated basic patient information and the food intake status of the subjects using their medical records. The basic information investigated was gender, age, type of cancer, and the presence of gastrointestinal obstruction 14 days prior to death. The Food Intake LEVEL Scale (FILS) was prospectively recorded.ResultsAfter applying the exclusion criteria, 108 subjects were finally included in the analysis (59 males aged 70.3 ± 13.3 years; 49 females aged 70.3 ± 14.5 years). The FILS gradually declined, and half of the subjects were unable to take food orally 6 days before death. In 81 subjects, after excluding subjects with gastrointestinal obstruction, the FILS gradually declined, and half of the subjects were unable to take food orally 4 days prior to death.ConclusionsMany terminally ill cancer patients can take food orally up to a few days prior to their death. Therefore, various specialists should support the oral intake of terminally ill cancer patients until immediately before their death.

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