Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Mar 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialOlanzapine for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients receiving highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) can severely impair patients' quality of life (QOL). Psychotropics, especially olanzapine, have a strong antiemetic effect. ⋯ The addition of 5mg/day of oral olanzapine to standard therapy can reduce the frequency of CINV and improve QOL of patients receiving highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Mar 2014
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialNurse-led follow-up at home vs. conventional medical outpatient clinic follow-up in patients with incurable upper gastrointestinal cancer: a randomized study.
Upper gastrointestinal cancer is associated with a poor prognosis. The multidimensional problems of incurable patients require close monitoring and frequent support, which cannot sufficiently be provided during conventional one to two month follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic. ⋯ The results suggest that conventional medical follow-up is interchangeable with nurse-led follow-up. A cost utility study is necessary to determine the preferred frequency and duration of the home visits.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Mar 2014
Multicenter Study Observational StudyDevelopment of a six-month prognostic index in patients with advanced chronic medical conditions: the PALIAR score.
Efforts in developing useful tools to properly identify the end-of-life trajectory of patients with advanced medical diseases have been made, but the calibration and/or discriminative power of these tools has not been optimal. ⋯ The PALIAR score is a precise and reliable tool for identifying the end-of-life trajectory in patients with advanced medical diseases.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Mar 2014
Multicenter StudyEconomic impact of advanced pediatric cancer on families.
Despite emerging evidence of substantial financial distress in families of children with complex illness, little is known about economic hardship in families of children with advanced cancer. ⋯ The economic impact of pediatric advanced cancer on families is significant at all income levels, although poorer families suffer disproportionate losses. Development of ameliorative intervention strategies is warranted.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Mar 2014
A longitudinal analysis of symptom clusters in cancer patients and their sociodemographic predictors.
Exploring the relationships between concurrent symptoms or "symptom clusters" (SCs) longitudinally may complement the knowledge gained from the traditional approach of examining individual symptoms or SCs crosssectionally. ⋯ The presence of SCs across the first year of diagnosis supports the need for routine and ongoing screening for the range of symptoms that may be experienced by patients. Further work is needed to develop interventions that better target individual symptoms that cluster, as well as the entire cluster itself.