Palliative care Brain tumors

PURPOSE: This study aimed to examine the effect of dependent care theory-based post-surgical home care intervention on self-care, symptoms, and caregiver burden in primary brain tumor patients and their caregivers. METHODS: A parallel-group randomized controlled trial was conducted with patients who underwent surgery for a primary brain tumor between March 2019 and January 2020 in a tertiary hospital and with caregivers who cared for them at home. Eligible patients and caregivers were determined by block randomization...

PURPOSE: Diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) include all midline gliomas with a point mutation to the histone H3 gene resulting in the substitution of a lysine with a methionine (K27M). These tumors are classified as World Health Organization grade 4 with a mean survival between 9- and 19-months following diagnosis. There is currently no standard of care for DMG, and palliative radiation therapy has been proven to only extend survival by months. Our current study aims to report current treatment trends and predictors of the overall survival of DMG...

Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive and invasive types of brain cancer with a 5-year survival rate of 6.8%. With limited options, patients often have poor quality of life and are moved to palliative care after diagnosis. As a result, there is an extreme need for a novel theranostic method that allows for early diagnosis and noninvasive treatment as current peptide-based delivery standards may have off-target effects. Prussian Blue nanoparticles (PBNPs) have recently been investigated as photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and photothermal ablation agents...

OBJECTIVES: Despite the fact that fibromyalgia, a widespread disease of the musculoskeletal system, has no specific treatment, patients have shown improvement after pharmacological intervention. Pregabalin has demonstrated efficacy; however, its adverse effects may reduce treatment adherence. In this context, neuromodulatory techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may be employed as a complementary pain-relieving method. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of pregabalin and tDCS treatments on the behavioral and biomarker parameters of rats submitted to a fibromyalgia-like model...

BACKGROUND: Incidence rates of glioblastoma in very old patients are rising. The standard of care for this cohort is only partially defined and survival remains poor. The aims of this study were to reveal current practice of tumor-specific therapy and supportive care, and to identify predictors for survival in this cohort. METHODS: Patients aged 80 years or older at the time of glioblastoma diagnosis were retrospectively identified in 6 clinical centers in Switzerland and France...

BACKGROUND: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common devastating primary brain cancer in adults. In our clinical practice, median overall survival (mOS) of GBM patients seems increasing over time. METHODS: To address this observation, we have retrospectively analyzed the prognosis of 722 newly diagnosed GBM patients, aged below 70, in good clinical conditions (i.e. Karnofsky Performance Status -KPS- above 70%) and treated in our department according to the standard of care (SOC) between 2005 and 2018...

During the care of brain tumor patients, supportive care and palliation are carried out in an individualized manner, accompanied by adequate communication, in a multidisciplinary professional environment. In the case of brain tumor patients, the burden of symptoms resulting from the progression of the disease and the complications of treatments occur in a particularly high proportion. The supportive care of patients in a modern approach covers the targeted treatment of physical and psychosocial problems and also includes integrated palliation...

BACKGROUND: Depersonalization and derealization can occur not just from psychiatric causes but also from various organic etiologies, such as seizures and intracerebral structural abnormalities. However, there have been no previous reported cases to the authors' knowledge detailing isolated depersonalization and derealization in the absence of clinical seizure activity or other psychiatric pathology, as sequelae of structural intracerebral lesions. CASE PRESENTATION: In this case report, we detail the unique presentation of a 68-year-old woman under the care of palliative medicine who experienced depersonalization and derealization secondary to a metastatic lesion in her temporal lobe, in the parahippocampal gyrus to medial occipitotemporal gyrus region...

INTRODUCTION: Diffuse leptomeningeal glioneuronal tumor (DLGNT), a new addition to the 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) classification, is a rare childhood neoplasm presenting with disseminated leptomeningeal enhancement and an occasional intraparenchymal mass. Diagnosis is often impeded by infectious/immunological differentials, necessitating a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. We report an adult male with DLGNT without hydrocephalus, which is rare in patients with cerebellar masses...

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia and advanced cancer are complex conditions that impact life expectancy. This study aimed to examine the receipt of specialized palliative care (SPC) in patients with metastatic cancer and a coexisting diagnosis of psychosis compared to patients with cancer only. Secondary objectives included analyzing differences in emergency visits and place of death in relation to receipt of SPC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This retrospective, observational registry study utilized health care consumption data from the Stockholm Regional Council...

CONTEXT: Clinically assisted hydration during end-of-life care among patients with cancer is controversial; practice varies between clinical settings and countries, and there is a lack of evidence. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether breathlessness, respiratory secretion, or confusion correlates with receiving parenteral hydration during end of life, adjusted for sex, age, and place of death. METHODS: The Swedish Register of Palliative Care database was used to collect data about the usage of parenteral hydration during the last day of life, and the occurrence of three symptoms during the last week...

BACKGROUND: Brain metastases (BM) are a common complication in advanced cancer patients, and extremely challenging to treat. Consequently, whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) remains the standard palliative intervention for patients with BM. The present study set to evaluate the clinical benefits of WBRT by assessing the quality of life (QoL) in WBRT-treated patients with BM, in Nigeria. METHODS: This was a prospective, longitudinal, hospital-based single-centre study...

The journey for a patient with a brain tumor and their loved ones can be extremely challenging due to the high burden of physical symptoms and the emotional distress caused by the diagnosis. Optimizing quality of life by addressing symptoms and reducing this emotional distress can improve treatment tolerance and outcomes and alleviate care partner distress and burden. Symptoms in patients with central nervous system (CNS) tumors can vary in onset and intensity, ranging from headaches, seizures, and focal weakness to emotional distress and cognitive dysfunction...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain malignancy in adults, and its incidence is increasing worldwide. Its prognosis remains limited despite recent imaging and therapeutic advances. The current standard of care is maximal safe resection followed by conventionally fractionated radiotherapy with concurrent and adjuvant temozolomide (TMZ), with or without tumor-treating fields (TTF). However, hypofractionated radiotherapy (HFRT) has also been utilized for a variety of reasons. It is an established treatment option in the palliative setting, where shortened treatment duration can positively impact the overall quality of life for older patients or those with additional health or socioeconomic considerations...

CONTEXT: Pediatric palliative care (PPC) improves end-of-life (EOL) outcomes for children with cancer. Though PPC visits are the 'intervention' in studies focused on EOL care, the content of PPC visits within pediatric oncology is poorly understood. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to understand the scope of PPC practice during visits for children with cancer and their families. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of patients 0-27 years with cancer seen in PPC clinic within an academic pediatric oncology center between 2017 and 2022...

Background and Objective: A recent report indicated that metastases to other body organs commonly develop after stereotactic body radiation treatment for cure in patients with oligometastases (OGM) confined to one organ. This study was undertaken to determine if the presence of metastatic disease in two other visceral organs (TVO) in patients with conventionally treated brain metastases (BRM) was associated with poorer prognosis. Methods: This retrospective clinical investigation included 26 patients treated for palliation of OGM-BRM between May 1996 and February 2020...

Although rare, intramedullary spinal cord metastases (ISCMs) are on the rise, most likely due to prolonged survival and improved outcomes as a result of the advances in cancer treatment for cancer patients. While the management of these lesions remains controversial, surgery for ISCM has recently been advocated for selected patients. We performed a retrospective analysis on 30 patients who were surgically treated for intramedullary spinal cord metastases in order to determine a preoperative prognostic scoring system to guide patient selection for surgical interventions...

PURPOSE: Patients with brain metastases are often referred for brain radiotherapy (BrRT) when exclusive palliative management would be more appropriate. To assess the indication of BrRT during end-of-life (EOL) care and evaluate the characteristics of the patients who underwent the treatment. METHODS: This retrospective study comprised patients from four independent oncology centers who had undergone BrRT for metastases. The variables included were Karnofsky performance status (KPS), primary tumor site, metastatic status, neurologic symptomatic status, the number and size of metastases, posterior fossa or meningeal involvement, type of BrRT, having undergone brain metastasectomy, and the availability of systemic therapies after BrRT...

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PURPOSE: Brain metastases (BM) are mainly treated palliatively with an expected survival of less than 12 months after diagnosis. In many solid tumors, the human neural stem cell marker glycoprotein CD133 is a marker of a tumor-initiating cell population that contributes to therapy resistance, relapse, and metastasis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Here, we use a variant of our previously described CD133 binder to generate second-generation CD133-specific chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) to demonstrate its specificity and efficacy against multiple patient-derived BM cell lines with variable CD133 antigen expression...