ArticleIndian journal of palliative care2012
Should Blood Cultures be Performed in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients?
Article in Indian journal of palliative care, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk-benefit balance of blood cultures among patients with stage IV cancer in unplanned admission: a nationwide propensity score-weighted study in Japan.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Analysis of microbiological tests in patients withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment at the end stage of life in 2 Korean hospitals.Infection control and hospital epidemiology · 2024Article
- Design, synthesis, molecular modeling, and biological evaluation of sulfanilamide-imines derivatives as potential anticancer agents.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2013Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundNo evidence-based guidelines or protocols to treat the infection-related symptoms in cancer patients with terminal stages have been established. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe retrospectively analyzed all the patients with terminal stage cancer who died between April 2009 and March 2010. The patients' background, the prevalence of infection and clinical outcomes, pathogens isolated, antibiotics used, and whether blood cultures and some of examinations were performed or not were evaluated.
resultsA total of 62 (44 males and 18 females) patients were included in this study. The median age was 73 years (35-98 years). The most common cancer was that of the lung (n =59, 95.2%). A total of 32 patients were diagnosed with the following infections: Infection of respiratory tract in 27 (84.4%), of urinary tract in 4 (12.5%), and cholangitis in 1 (3.1%). Two cases (6.3%) had pneumonia complicated with urinary tract infection. Blood cultures and antibiotic therapies were performed in 28 and 30 cases, respectively. Four (14.3%) positive cultures were isolated from the blood obtained from 28 individual patients. As for clinical course, 3 (10%) of them experienced improved symptoms after antibiotic therapy. Twenty-seven (90%) patients were not confirmed as having any symptom improvement.
conclusionsBlood cultures and antibiotic therapy were limited, and might not be effective in terminally ill cancer patients with lung cancer. We suggest that administering an antibiotic therapy without performing a blood culture would be one of choices in those with respiratory tract infections if patients' life expectancy is short.
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