Abstract
Purpose
To determine the prevalence of anorexia among advanced lung cancer patients at the beginning of receiving home-based palliative care and to examine the predictive role of anorexia in survival of patients with advanced lung cancer.
Methods
In this retrospective study, we analyzed data from 918 advanced lung cancer patients who had received home-based palliative care between March 2010 and March 2020. We used Kaplan-Meier survival curves to determine the factors associated with survival time and applied the Cox proportional hazards model to examine the effect of anorexia on survival.
Results
The study included 918 patients with a mean age of 63.5 years; and 72.2% of them were men. Factors associated with shortened survival included gender, place of residence, weight loss, anorexia, nausea and Karnofsky performance status (KPS). In a multivariable Cox proportional hazards model, after adjusting for male gender, patient lives in city, and low KPS, we found that anorexia was an independent negative predictor of survival.
Conclusions
As an independent factor predicting the survival of patients with advanced lung cancer, anorexia should be taken seriously by medical staff. This predictive factor may serve as early risk identification indicator for healthcare workers who provide home-based palliative care, thereby providing personalized palliative care for advanced lung cancer patients.
Developing and Assessing the Effectiveness of a Nurse-Led Home-Based Educational Programme for Managing Breathlessness in Lung Cancer Patients. A Feasibility Study
