Palliative needs for heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Results of a multicenter observational registry.

Background: Heart failure (HF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) share a common organ failure trajectory marked by prognostic uncertainty, which is a barrier to appropriate provision of palliative care. We describe in a prospective cohort from specialist hospital services the epidemiology and late clinical course of these chronic diseases to trace criteria for transition to palliative care in the community.

Methods And Results: Seven centers enrolled 267 patients with advanced HF (n=174) or COPD (n=93) using common (multiple hospitalizations or severely impaired functional status or cachexia) and disease-specific (HF: systolic dysfunction, NYHA classes III-IV, end-organ hypoperfusion; COPD: very severe airflow obstruction, hypoxemia, hypercapnia, or long-term oxygen therapy) entry criteria.

Activity and safety of erlotinib as second- and third-line treatment in elderly patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer: a phase II trial.

Erlotinib is an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Efficacy of this drug was documented in the BR.21 trial showing that adenocarcinoma, female gender, Asian ethnicity and never-smoker status are predictive of clinical response to erlotinib.

Weekly paclitaxel in elderly patients (aged > or = 70 years) with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer: an alternative choice? Results of a phase II study.

Purpose: Paclitaxel and platinum-based chemotherapy is considered to be a standard approach for locally advanced and metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In recent years, weekly paclitaxel has been widely used for its safety profile, especially in breast and ovarian cancer. Otherwise, only a few studies are available in NSCLC.

A phase II study of single-agent oral vinorelbine in patients with pretreated advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.

Purpose: Intravenous vinorelbine has demonstrated its efficacy and tolerability in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). An oral formulation of vinorelbine has been developed, and a number of phase II studies have shown its activity in chemotherapy-naive NSCLC, even in elderly patients, but no study has been performed to test activity and toxicity of oral vinorelbine in pretreated patients. The aims of our study were to investigate the activity and toxicity of oral vinorelbine in patients with NSCLC as salvage treatment.

Weekly docetaxel as second-line therapy in non-small cell lung cancer: a phase II study.

Introduction: Single-agent docetaxel is active as second-line chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) pretreated patients; seven phase II studies have shown response rates of about 20% and 9 months of median survival. Two phase III studies documented a survival benefit at 1 year compared to BSC and vinorelbine or ifosfamide. Recent trials indicate acceptable activity and a good safety profile of weekly docetaxel with doses of 25-43 mg/m2.