Symptom burden and characteristics of patients who die in the acute palliative care unit of a tertiary cancer center.

Background: Acute palliative care unit (APCU) is a novel inpatient program in a tertiary cancer center that provides aggressive symptom management and assists with the transition to hospice. However, patients often die in the APCU before successfully transferring to hospice. The aim of this study was to evaluate the symptom burden and characteristics of advanced cancer patients who died in the APCU.

Efficacy of a Decision Aid Consisting of a Video and Booklet on Advance Care Planning for Advanced Cancer Patients: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Context: Few randomized controlled trials of advance care planning (ACP) with a decision aid (DA) show an effect on patient preferences for end-of-life (EOL) care over time, especially in racial/ethnic settings outside the U.S.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a decision aid consisting of a video and an ACP booklet for EOL care preferences among patients with advanced cancer.

Infectious complications in multiple myeloma receiving autologous stem cell transplantation in the past 10 years.

Infection is one of the main causes of early-treatment mortality in multiple myeloma (MM) patients during autologous stem cell transplantation (autoSCT). In the present study, we sought to determine the incidence of, and risk factors for, infection during hospital stays after autoSCT. We retrospectively evaluated 324 autoSCT events that occurred in 285 MM patients between 2006 and 2015, and reviewed the clinical characteristics of patients and history of infections.