Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Opioids in Patients with Solid Tumours: Is Their Association Safe? A Systematic Literature Review.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) represent one of the most effective treatments for patients with cancer. As their activity relies on host immune system reactivity, the role of concomitant medications such as corticosteroids and antibiotics has been extensively evaluated. Preclinical data suggest that opioids may influence the immune system.

The Path of Cicely Saunders: The "Peculiar Beauty" of Palliative Care.

This paper is aimed at focusing on the writings and the experience of the Hospice movement Founder, Dame Cicely Saunders. The in-depth analysis carried out had the objective of verifying if "the way" of Cicely to understand, live and propose palliative care was still current and "beautiful", so that we can nowadays refer to her fascinating "Original Palliative Care". With "beauty" we mean, on the one hand, a way able to allow a personal path of research of the meaning of the disease and of the care, both for those who care and for those who are cared for.

Systematic vs. on-demand early palliative care in gastric cancer patients: a randomized clinical trial assessing patient and healthcare service outcomes.

Purpose: Early palliative care (EPC) has shown a positive impact on quality of life (QoL), quality of care, and healthcare costs. We evaluated such effects in patients with advanced gastric cancer.

Methods: In this prospective, multicenter study, 186 advanced gastric cancer patients were randomized 1:1 to receive standard cancer care (SCC) plus on-demand EPC (standard arm) or SCC plus systematic EPC (interventional arm).

Palliative Sedation for the Terminally Ill Patient.

Palliative sedation (PS) is performed in the terminally ill patient to manage one or more refractory symptoms. Proportional PS, which means that drugs can be titrated to the minimum effective dose, is the form most widely used. From a quarter to a third of all terminally ill patients undergo PS, with a quarter of these requiring continuous deep sedation.