Weekly epirubicin chemotherapy can lead to a rapid and lasting palliative result in patients with metastatic HRPC, and have a positive effect on the quality of life and survival.
In conclusion, weekly epirubicin chemotherapy can lead to a rapid and lasting palliative result, and have a positive effect on the quality of life and duration of survival, in patients with metastatic HRPC.
In accordance with Simon's two-stage phase II design, a sample size of 110 patients was required, assuming a palliative result of approximately 30% for other treatment modalities and a target activity level of interest of 45%, with an α of 0.05 and a β of 0.90.
When patients and family members are adequately informed of the risks and benefits of these therapies, which often they are not, they are more likely to choose palliative care, resulting in improved quality of lives and better deaths.
Current pharmacological treatments are largely palliative and result in non-specific immunosuppression.
This palliative treatment resulted in good response regarding pain relief and tumour regression in 80% of the patients treated.
Three patients (23%) started palliative ADT, resulting in a projected 2-year ADT-FS rate of 79.5%.
In this study we found that half of the calls regarding palliative care resulted in a home visit by the locum, and that medication was prescribed in 57% of all palliative care calls.
By revealing tumour sites that would be unsuspected on CT, [F]FDG-PET can make radiotherapy inappropriate, alter the treatment intent from curative to palliative or result in extension of the treatment volume.
