The effect of palliative outpatient units on resource use for cancer patients in Finland.

Background: As cancer incidences are increasing, the means to provide effective palliative care (PC) are called for. There is evidence, that PC may prevent futile treatment at the end of life (EOL) thus implicating that PC decreases resource use at the EOL, however, the effects of outpatient PC units remain largely unknown. We surveyed the national use of Finnish tertiary care PC units and their effects on resource use at the EOL in real-life environments.

Impact of the Regional Palliative Care Pathway on Emergency Room Visits and Hospitalizations.

Background/aim: To explore the effect of palliative care (PC) pathway including home care and end-of-life care beds in the community hospitals supported by a PC unit in the secondary hospital on ER visits and hospitalizations.

Patients And Methods: Patients with advanced cancer and no further oncologic therapies who visited the ER of the Hyvinkää hospital before (2009) and after (2015) the establishment of the PC pathway were evaluated.

Results: A total of 112 patients visited the ER in both years, but revisits decreased from 59% to 38% (p<0.

The impact of the duration of the palliative care period on cancer patients with regard to the use of hospital services and the place of death: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: In order to avoid unnecessary use of hospital services at the end-of-life, palliative care should be initiated early enough in order to have sufficient time to initiate and carry out good quality advance care planning (ACP). This single center study assesses the impact of the PC decision and its timing on the use of hospital services at EOL and the place of death.

Methods: A randomly chosen cohort of 992 cancer patients treated in a tertiary hospital between Jan 2013 -Dec 2014, who were deceased by the end of 2014, were selected from the total number of 2737 identified from the hospital database.

Assessing the utilization of the decision to implement a palliative goal for the treatment of cancer patients during the last year of life at Helsinki University Hospital: a historic cohort study.

To avoid aggressive treatments at the end-of-life and to provide palliative care (PC), physicians need to terminate futile anti-cancer treatments and define the palliative goal of the treatment in time. This single center study assesses the practices used to make the decision that leads to treatment with a palliative goal, i.e.

The indirect costs of palliative care in end-stage cancer: A real-life longitudinal register- and questionnaire-based study.

Background: Palliative care needs are increasing as more people are dying from incurable diseases. Healthcare costs have been reported to be highest during the last year of life, but studies on the actual costs of palliative care are scarce.

Aim: To explore the resource use and costs of palliative care among end-stage breast, colorectal and prostate cancer patients after termination of life-prolonging oncological treatments, that is, during the palliative care period.

Vasopeptidase Inhibition Corrects the Structure and Function of the Small Arteries in Experimental Renal Insufficiency.

Background: We studied whether vasopeptidase inhibition corrects the structure and function of the small arteries in experimental chronic renal insufficiency (CRI).

Methods: After 5/6 nephrectomy (NX) surgery was performed on rats, there was a 14-week follow-up, allowing CRI to become established. Omapatrilat (40 mg/kg/day in chow) was then given for 8 weeks, and the small mesenteric arterial rings were investigated in vitro using wire and pressure myographs.