Parenteral Nutrition in Palliative Cancer Care: Detrimental, Futile, or Beneficial?

Palliative cancer care patients may live for a long time, but malnutrition worsens the prognosis. Parenteral nutrition (PN) is suitable for replenishing a calorie deficit, but its advantages and tolerance late in the cancer trajectory are debated. We examined symptom development in hospitalized patients with and without PN.

[A woman in her eighties with chest pain during immunotherapy for melanoma].

Background: Immunotherapy is used to treat several cancer types. As it is a relatively new type of treatment, knowledge of optimal handling of rare side effects is sparse.

Case Presentation: A woman in her early eighties with inoperable metastases from malignant melanoma was given immunotherapy.