跳至主要内容

Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Life Expectancy of Patients with End-Stage Oral Cancer

Accurate estimation of life expectancy in terminally ill patients with cancer is important from both the clinician’s and the patient’s perspectives. However, studies have revealed that clinicians do not accurately estimate the time to death, making it difficult for the patients and their families to prepare themselves. Although several indices and scores exist for evaluating the life expectancy, most of these include subjective components in the calculation, such as the presence of edema, anorexia, or delirium, which makes the objective assessment prone to inaccuracy.

In this paper, the authors aimed to evaluate the value of the Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI) for accurately estimating the life expectancy of patients with end-stage oral cancer. A longitudinal section study was performed after obtaining ethical approval and in-formed consent. Fifteen patients (12 men; mean age: 71.7 years old) who died of oral cancer between 2005 and 2014 (the terminal group) were included. The mean PNI values at the initial visit and at 3, 2, and 1 months before the deaths were comparatively analyzed. The following data were collected from the patient medical records: sex, age, site of primary tumor, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, serum albumin levels, and peripheral lymphocyte count measured at the initial visit and at various time points during the follow-up period.

The results indicated that the mean follow-up period was 133 days. At the initial examination, the PNI values were 49.1 ± 4.5 (p = 0.6723). The PNI value of the terminal group was 35.6 ± 5.1 at 2 months before death and 28.6 ± 3.0 at 1 month before death. The PNI values at 3, 2, and 1 months before death in the terminal group significantly differed from each other and from that at the initial visit and steadily decreased until death.

In conclusion, the findings suggest the utility of PNI as a prognostic index in patients with end-stage oral cancer patients. Considering the particular importance of appropriate nutritional management in these patients at the end stage of the disease, more research is necessary to investigate how the PNI value can be used in these patients to improve the quality of life near death.

Article by Atsushi Abe, et al, from Japan.

Full access: http://t.cn/E4x2GUV
Image by Ka-Ron Wade, from Flickr-cc. 

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Electron Spin and Proton Spin in the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Like Atomic Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52202#.VIj7tMnQrzE Author(s) Stanisław Olszewski * Affiliation(s) Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland . ABSTRACT The mechanical angular momentum and magnetic moment of the electron and proton spin have been calculated semiclassically with the aid of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. The spin effects of both kinds of the elementary particles can be expressed in terms of similar formulae. The quantization of the spin motion has been done on the basis of the old quantum theory. It gives a quantum number n = 1/2 as the index of the spin state acceptable for both the electron and proton
发表评论
阅读全文

Remarks on the Complexity of Signed k-Domination on Graphs

Read  full  paper  at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53574#.VMnXsCzQrzE Author(s)    Chuan-Min Lee 1 , Cheng-Chien Lo 1 , Rui-Xin Ye 2 , Xun Xu 2 , Xiao-Han Shi 2 , Jia-Ying Li 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, Ming Chuan University, The First American University in Asia, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Chinese Taipei . 2 Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China . ABSTRACT This paper is motivated by the concept of the signed k-domination problem and dedicated to the complexity of the problem on graphs. For any fixed nonnegative integer k, we show that the signed k-domination problem is NP-complete for doubly chordal graphs. For strongly chordal graphs and distance-hereditary graphs, we show that the signed k-domination problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also show that the problem is linear-time solvable for trees, interval graphs, and chordal comparability graphs
发表评论
阅读全文

Dietary Fiber Content of Waterleaf (Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd) Cultivated with Organic and Conventional Fertilization in Different SeasonsDietary Fiber Content of Waterleaf (Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd) Cultivated with Organic and Conventional Fertilization in Different Seasons

Read  full  paper  at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53985#.VN21HizQrzE Author(s)  Nuri Andarwulan 1,2 , Didah Nur Faridah 1,2 , Yolanda Sylvia Prabekti 1 , Harum Fadhilatunnur 1 , Leo Mualim 3 , Sandra Arifin Aziz 3 , Luis Cisneros-Zevallos 4   Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Food Science and Technology, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia . 2 Southeast Asian Food and Agricultural Science and Technology (SEAFAST) Center, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia . 3 Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia . 4 Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA . ABSTRACT Waterleaf ( Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd has long been eaten in Indonesia as vegetable and the main parts consumed are leaves and young shoots. Waterleaf is sticky presumably due to its pectin content which is associated to dietary fiber. The dietary fiber which
发表评论
阅读全文