Prophylactic antibiotics and corticosteroid prescribing in palliative medicine: retrospective study.

Objectives: To investigate whether patients under the care of the community specialist palliative care team receiving steroids are at increased risk of infection.To identify other risk factors that predispose community palliative care patients to infection.

Methods: A retrospective chart review of all patients referred to a community specialist palliative care service.

A case of life-threatening nausea and vomiting.

Nausea and vomiting are symptoms frequently occurring in the presence of cancer. However, a patient with known cancer may also have a benign cause for nausea and vomiting. This case report of a patient with early gastric carcinoma demonstrates this point, and is a caution against attributing worsening symptoms to worsening cancer.