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Background: Although palliative care has been accepted throughout the cancer trajectory, accurate survival prediction for advanced cancer patients is still a challenge. The aim of this study is to identify pre-palliative care predictors and develop a prognostic nomogram for overall survival (OS) in mixed advanced cancer patients., Methods: A total of 378 consecutive advanced cancer patients were retrospectively recruited from July 2013 to October 2015 in one palliative care unit in China. Twenty-three clinical and laboratory characters were collected for analysis. Prognostic factors were identified to construct a nomogram in a training cohort (n = 247) and validated in a testing cohort (n = 131) from the setting., Results: The median survival time was 48.0 (95% CI: 38.1-57.9) days for the training cohort and 52.0 (95% CI: 34.6-69.3) days for the validation cohort. Among pre-palliative care factors, sex, age, tumor stage, Karnofsky performance status, neutrophil count, hemoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase, albumin, uric acid, and cystatin-C were identified as independent prognostic factors for OS. Based on the 10 factors, an easily obtained nomogram predicting 90-day probability of mortality was developed. The predictive nomogram had good discrimination and calibration, with a high C-index of 0.76 (95% CI: 0.73-0.80) in the development set. The strong discriminative ability was externally conformed in the validation cohort with a C-index of 0.75., Conclusions: A validated prognostic nomogram has been developed to quantify the risk of mortality for advanced cancer patients undergoing palliative care. This tool may be useful in optimizing therapeutic approaches and preparing for clinical courses individually.

Background: This study was carried out to investigate the prognostic value of baseline and dynamic changes in anxious emotion in advanced cancer patients undergoing palliative care., Methods: The association between anxious emotion and survival was investigated in a retrospective sample of 377 consecutive advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care from August 2013 to October 2015 and in an extended follow-up study of 106 of those patients., Results: The prevalence of anxious emotion was 24.93% (94/377) overall, 22.48% (47/209) in men and 27.97% (47/168) in women. Significant associations between baseline anxious emotion and overall survival (OS) were not found in the whole sample or in women. However, univariate and multivariate analyses showed that anxious emotion was an independent prognostic indicator of OS in men (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.811, P = .003). Moreover, findings showed that newly developed anxious emotion was significantly associated with poor OS in all readmitted patients (HR: 5.568, P < .001), in men (HR: 5.104, P = .006) and women (HR: 5.820, P = .004)., Conclusions: Our study suggests that anxious emotion, especially dynamic changes in anxious emotion, needs to be monitored in advanced cancer patients; whether targeted interventions would prolong survival requires further studies., (Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

The objective of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of pretreatment NLR and its dynamic changes responsive to palliative care in advanced cancer patients. The study was retrospectively assessed in 378 consecutive advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care, and in an extended follow-up study of 106 of those patients. The cutoff value of pretreatment NLR was determined to be 3.0. In the 378 advanced cancer patients, 89 had pretreatment NLR ≤ 3, and 289 had an NLR > 3. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that tumor stage, palliative care, albumin level, and pretreatment NLR (HR: 1.514, 95% CI: 1.125~2.038, P = 0.006) were independent prognostic indicators of OS. Moreover, in the follow-up cohort of 106 readmitted patients, 43 patients achieved a decreased NLR after palliative care, while the remaining 63 patients showed an increased NLR. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that an increase in NLR was significantly associated with a poor survival (HR: 2.506, 95% CI: 1.474~4.261, P = 0.001). In conclusion, pretreatment NLR and changes in NLR independently predicted OS in advanced cancer patients undergoing palliative care. Incorporating NLR into clinical practice may better inform the prognosis and therapy decisions of advanced cancer patients in palliative settings.

Background: The lymphocytes played an important role in the natural history of cancer. The aim of this study was to explore the prognostic value of lymphocyte count and percentage for survival in advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care.Methods: A retrospective review of clinicopathological data from 378 consecutive advanced cancer patients and 106 extended follow-up patients treated with palliative care was conducted. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationships of peripheral lymphocyte count (LC) and lymphocyte to white blood cell ratio (LWR) with overall survival (OS).Results: The median values for pretreatment LC and LWR were 1.1 (IQR, 0.8 ~ 1.5 × 109/L) and 0.138 (IQR, 0.086 ~ 0.208). The median survival times across LWR quartiles were 19, 47, 79, and 101 days (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis indicated that patients in the highest quartiles of LC and LWR had an HR of 1.082 (95% CI 0.777 ~ 1.506, P = 0.642) and 0.466 (95% CI 0.328 ~ 0.661, P < 0.001), respectively, compared with patients in the lowest quartiles. Furthermore, only the dynamic changes of LWR were confirmed as an independent prognostic factor for overall survival during the follow-up (HR = 0.396, 95% CI 0.243 ~ 0.668; P = 0.001), as were primary tumor site and ECOG. No effect was observed for the dynamic changes of LC.Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that measurement of the dynamic changes of LWR prior to treatment and during follow-up may represent a simple and new powerful prognostic factor for patients with advanced cancer, unlike measurement of LC. As a bedside marker of immune status, the prognostic role of LWR should be further evaluated in prospective studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]