Onkologie
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Most people would like to die at home, however, this wish still cannot be realized to any satisfactory extent. Provision of qualified palliative care can increase the death rate at home. Distribution of places of death of cancer patients in rural locations and possible factors influencing this distribution are still unknown. ⋯ Rural locations provide favorable conditions for home deaths. High therapy costs and transfer of expensive therapies away from hospitals into the outpatient therapy sector appear to have an effect on the place where patients are finally cared for and where they eventually die. This circumstance meets the wishes of most patients and leads to a relevant cost saving for the healthcare system. An effective and rigorous health and economic policy is necessary in order to realize an extensive home care for terminally ill patients.
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Clinical Trial
PAC fixed dose: pharmacokinetics of a 1-hour paclitaxel infusion and comparison to BSA-normalized drug dosing.
The aim of this study was to determine the pharmacokinetics (PKs) of a 175-mg fixed dose of paclitaxel (PAC) after a 1-h infusion in cancer patients and to compare them with the PK parameters from a study with a dose normalized to the body surface area (BSA) (100 mg/m2). ⋯ In this study, a fixed dose of PAC of 175 mg corresponds to a mean BSA-normalized dose of 98.3 mg/m2 (range 88.8-117.4 mg/m2). A higher variability of PK parameters was observed compared to previously published results of a PK study with BSA-normalized dosing of 100 mg/m2. However, the AUC and the time above threshold concentrations did not depend on the dose. Therefore, a fixed dose of 175 mg weekly could be an option for palliative treatment with PAC and may offer a simple but effective schedule for PAC treatment.