Cancer medicine
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Patient and clinician experience of a serious illness conversation guide in oncology: A descriptive analysis.
Oncology guidelines recommend earlier communication with patients about prognosis and goals-of-care in serious illness. However, current evidence leaves gaps in our understanding of the experience of these conversations. This analysis evaluates the patient and clinician experience of a conversation using a Serious Illness Conversation Guide (SICG). ⋯ Conversations using a SICG were feasible, acceptable, and were associated with positive experiences for both patients and clinicians in oncology in ways that align with national recommendations for serious illness communication. This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01786811 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01786811.
-
Currently, there are no recognized or validated biomarkers to identify hepatocellular carcinoma patients (HCC) likely to benefit from anti-PD-1 therapy. We evaluated the relationship between neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and survival outcomes, pretreatment and after three doses (posttreatment) of nivolumab in HCC patients. ⋯ This study suggests a strong predictive role of these inflammatory cell ratios in the posttreatment setting in HCC patients treated with anti anti-PD-1 therapy and should be evaluated in a larger cohort.