Symptom Clusters in Advanced Cancer

Abstract

Different SCs can be identified in patients with advanced cancer. These SCs are influenced by primary cancer site, gender, age, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, and they can have prognostic value.

The lung cancer patient, the pneumologist and palliative care: a developing alliance

“…Patients suffering from lung cancer show a high burden of comorbidities and symptoms [7][8][9][10][11][12][13], as well as unmet needs, specifically psychological and daily living problems; this was recently systematically reviewed by MAGUIRE et al [14]. Lung cancer patients experience more psychological distress in addition to physical hardship than patients with other tumour sites [6,8,[15][16][17][18][19].…”

“…Lung cancer patients experience more psychological distress in addition to physical hardship than patients with other tumour sites [6,8,[15][16][17][18][19]. With a wide lack of specific information about lung cancer patients, data from cancer patients in general are helpful for an overview.…”

The importance and pitfalls of correlational science in palliative care research

“…This means that in the presence of an observed association between two variables, correlational science cannot state which of the variables caused the change in the other variable. In palliative care research, many symptoms tend to be associated with each other [1]. But it is often difficult to define which symptom causes or worsens the other symptom.…”

“…This argument can be made for most symptoms observed in bivariate analyses in palliative care. Many researchers feel that it is more correct to describe symptom clusters recognizing that the patients, due to their advanced disease, are prone to have a number of symptoms, many of which tend to concur [1,2]. However, this approach does not solve the issue of experimental design and the lack of the possibility to 'prove' causality.…”

Palliative Care in the Muslim-Majority Countries:The Need for More and Better Care

“…Indeed, advanced cancer patients experience a range of symptoms that require medical management. Cancer patients tend to experience multiple symptoms including what has been termed "symptom clusters" i.e., two or more symptoms that present together (Fan et al, 2007;Jimenez et al, 2011). Symptom clustering has also been documented in Muslim patients in Kuwait (Alshemmari et al, 2011).…”