Impact of a specialised palliative care intervention in patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma – a single-centre retrospective analysis

Abstract

Background Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) account for less than 1% of all malignancies. Approximately 50% of the patients develop metastases with limited survival in the course of their disease. For those patients, palliative treatment aiming at symptom relief and improvement of quality of life is most important. However, data on symptom burden and palliative intervention are limited in STS patients. Aim Our study evaluates the effectiveness of a palliative care intervention on symptom relief and quality of life in STS patients. Design/setting We retrospectively analysed 53 inpatient visits of 34 patients with advanced STS, admitted to our palliative care unit between 2012 and 2018. Symptom burden was measured with a standardised base assessment questionnaire at admission and discharge. Results Median disease duration before admission was 24 months, 85% of patients had metastases. The predominant indication for admission was pain, weakness and fatigue. Palliative care intervention led to a significant reduction of pain: median NRS for acute pain was reduced from 3 to 1 (p < 0.001), pain within the last 24 h from 5 to 2 (p < 0.001) and of the median MIDOS symptom score: 18 to 13 (p < 0.001). Also, the median stress level, according to the distress thermometer, was reduced significantly: 7.5 to 5 (p = 0.027). Conclusions Our data underline that specialised palliative care intervention leads to significant symptom relief in patients with advanced STS. Further efforts should aim for an early integration of palliative care in these patients focusing primarily on the identification of subjects at high risk for severe symptomatic disease.

Effective symptom relief through continuous integration of palliative care in advanced renal cell carcinoma patients: comprehensive measurement using the palliative care base assessment

“…A similar effect was shown for a cohort of sarcoma patients receiving inpatient palliative treatment. 35 …”

Pharmacists are initiators in palliative care for patients with rare diseases

“…Also for rare treatable hematologic malignancies [ 19 ] such as Acute Myeloid Leukemia [ 20 ] and Chronic Myeloid Leukemia [ 21 ] palliative care plans have been published. More recent publications appeared in the literature about palliative care for rare cancers with an orphan drug authorization such as multiple myeloma [ 22 , 23 ], rare lymphomas [ 24 ], myelodysplastic syndromes [ 25 ] and soft tissue sarcomas [ 26 ]. Most of the rare cancers have no authorized treatment and need palliative and end-of-life care.…”