ArticleSupportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer2016
How far along the disease trajectory? An examination of the time-related patient characteristics in the palliative oncology literature.
Article in Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association Between Plasma Brain Natriuretic Peptide and Overall Survival in Patients With Advanced Cancer: Preliminary Findings.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2019Trial
- Health-related quality of life in palliative care: determinants identified in a hospital-based observational study.BMC palliative care · 2025Observational
- Development of a predictive model for patients with bone metastases referred to palliative radiotherapy: Secondary analysis of a multicenter study (the PRAIS trial).Cancer medicine · 2024Observational
- Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine and Indian Association of Palliative Care Expert Consensus and Position Statements for End-of-life and Palliative Care in the Intensive Care Unit.Indian journal of critical care medicine : peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine · 2024Article
- Management of Physical Symptoms in Patients with Advanced Cancer during the Last Weeks and Days of Life.Cancer research and treatment · 2022Review
- The detection of delirium in admitted oncology patients: a scoping review.European geriatric medicine · 2022Article
- Prognostication in palliative radiotherapy-ProPaRT: Accuracy of prognostic scores.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
- Beyond Performance Status.Clinical oncology (Royal College of Radiologists (Great Britain)) · 2020Review
- Assessment of the Decision-Making Capacity for Clinical Research Participation in Patients With Advanced Cancer in the Last Weeks of Life.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2020Observational
- Factors Associated With Attrition in a Multicenter Longitudinal Observational Study of Patients With Advanced Cancer.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2018Observational
- The Intersection of Oncology Prognosis and Cancer Rehabilitation.Current physical medicine and rehabilitation reports · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeAdequate reporting of time-related patient characteristics is needed for research findings to be properly interpreted, applied, and reproduced. Our objective was to characterize the time-related patient characteristics in palliative oncology studies and to examine the differences in time-related patient characteristics by various study characteristics.
methodsWe extracted time-related patient characteristics including actual survival, performance status, cancer stage, disease trajectory, study setting, and eligibility criteria (life expectancy and performance status) from an established cohort of original palliative oncology articles published in 2004 and 2009.
resultsAmong 742 original articles, 409 (55 %) were case series. Only 247 (33 %) articles reported actual survival, 157 (21 %) reported actual performance status, 362 (49 %) cancer stage, and 392 (53 %) reported study setting. Based on all the available time-related characteristics, we were able to classify the studies into specific time-related categories in 378 (51 %) studies. Among these, only 47 (13 %) focused on patients in the last month of life. Compared to studies involving patients earlier in the disease trajectory, these studies were more likely to be case series (81 vs. 56 %, P = 0.005), retrospective (64 vs. 49 %, P = 0.03), and had a smaller sample size (median 20 vs. 61, P = 0.06).
conclusionsA majority of studies did not adequately report time-related patient characteristics. We also identified a gap in both the quantity and quality of studies involving patients in the last month of life. Our study has implications for study reporting and future directions for palliative oncology research.
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