Article Text

Download PDFPDF
End-of-life experiences in advanced cancer: gender differences
  1. Yutaka Hatano1,
  2. Masanori Mori2,
  3. Hiroaki Izumi3,
  4. Koji Amano4,5,
  5. Tetsuya Ito6,
  6. Junko Nozato7,
  7. Keisuke Kaneishi8,
  8. Tomohiro Kawamura9 and
  9. Tatsuya Morita10
  10. EASED Investigators
  1. 1 Department of Palliative Care, Medical Corporation Kyowakai, Kawanishi, Hyogo, Japan
  2. 2 Division of Palliative and Supportive Care, Seirei Mikatahara Hospital, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
  3. 3 Department of Palliative Care, Kyoundo Hospital, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  4. 4 Department of Palliative Medicine, National Cancer Center, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  5. 5 Department of Palliative and Supportive Medicine, Aichi Medical University, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan
  6. 6 Department of Palliative Care, Japanese Red Cross Medical Center, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
  7. 7 Department of Palliative Care, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  8. 8 Palliative Care Unit, JCHO Tokyo Shinjuku Medical Center, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  9. 9 Hospice, Yodogawa Christian Hospital, Osaka, Japan
  10. 10 Palliative and Supportive Care, Seirei Mikatahara Hospital, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Yutaka Hatano, Department of Palliative Care, Medical Corporation Kyowakai, Kawanishi, Hyogo 6660033, Japan; yutakahatano1{at}gmail.com

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Introduction

Studies have revealed the differences between the sexes in numerous diseases and cancer is one of such diseases, with sex-specific types of cancer and the differences in prevalence of cancer types between men and women.1 From a viewpoint of palliative and supportive care, it is also important to know how sex differences may affect symptoms and quality of life in advanced cancer patients. To the best of our knowledge, however, no study to date has compared two sex groups in terms of end-of-life symptoms and experiences among patients with cancer. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of sex differences on symptoms and experiences in terminally ill cancer patients.

Methods

This preliminary study is a secondary analysis of data from a multicentre observational cohort study, the East-Asian collaborative cross-cultural Study to Elucidate the Dying process.2 Participants were terminally ill cancer patients admitted to 23 inpatient hospices/palliative care units (PCUs) throughout Japan from January 2017 through June 2018. Eligible patients were those with a diagnosis of locally advanced or metastatic cancer who were newly admitted to PCUs, at least 18 years old, and died in the PCU. Written consent was waived according to the ethical guidelines of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, because all interventions were performed as part of routine clinical practice and posed no additional patient burden. The primary responsible physician obtained data from daily clinical practice. …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Collaborators EASED Investigators.

  • Contributors Conceptualisation: YH, MM, HI, TM. Project administration: MM. Recruitment and data collection: KA, TI, JN, KK, TK. Financial support: MM. Data analysis: YH. Manuscript writing: all authors.

  • Funding This study was funded by the Japan Hospice Palliative Care Foundation.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

  • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.