Cancer
-
Each year, greater than a half million people die of cancer in the U.S. Despite progress in increasing access to palliative oncology services, end-of-life care still needs improvement. Measuring the quality of the end-of-life experience is difficult because of patient debility and reduced consciousness as death approaches. Family proxies have been proposed as valuable informants regarding the quality of end-of-life care. This article describes family proxy perspectives concerning care at the end of life in patients who died of advanced cancer. ⋯ Measurement of proxy perspectives is feasible as an indicator of the quality of end-of-life care, and the results of the current study provide actionable data for areas of improvement in palliative oncology care.
-
Comparative Study
Correlates of patient satisfaction and provider trust after breast-conserving surgery.
Although breast-conserving therapy (BCS) is considered the standard of care for early-stage breast cancer, up to 20% of patients are dissatisfied. The effect of treatment-related factors on patient satisfaction with their healthcare experiences is unclear. ⋯ Esthetic result after BCS was associated more profoundly with aspects of satisfaction than either surgical therapy or the occurrence of postoperative complications. The current findings indicated that surgeons who care for patients with breast cancer should identify the women at an increased risk for breast asymmetry preoperatively to effectively address their expectations of treatment outcomes.
-
Comparative Study
Pulmonary resection in patients with nonsmall-cell lung cancer treated with gamma-knife radiosurgery for synchronous brain metastases.
The aim of the current study was to determine whether a pulmonary resection and gamma-knife radiosurgery (GKRS) protocol is superior to GKRS alone in selected patients with stage IV nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). ⋯ The pulmonary resection and GKRS protocol could prolong survival in patients with thoracic stage I or II NSCLC, no extracranial metastases, and a limited number of small synchronous brain metastases.
-
Onycholysis occurs in approximately 30% of patients treated with docetaxel. The efficacy and safety of an Elasto-Gel frozen sock (FS) was investigated for the prevention of docetaxel-induced nail and skin toxicity of the feet. ⋯ Cold therapy using FS significantly reduced the incidence of docetaxel-induced foot nail toxicity, as previously demonstrated using frozen gloves for the hands.