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Purpose To evaluate the effects of a palliative care intervention on clinical and family outcomes, and palliative care processes. Methods Prospective, before-and-after interventional study enrolling patients with high risk of mortality, morbidity, or unmet palliative care needs in a 24-bed academic intensive care unit (ICU). The intervention involved a palliative care clinician interacting with the ICU physicians on daily rounds for high-risk patients. Results 100 patients were enrolled in the usual care phase, and 103 patients were enrolled during the intervention phase. The adjusted likelihood of a family meeting in ICU was 63% higher (RR 1.63, 95% CI 1.14 to 2.07, p=0.01), and time to family meeting was 41% shorter (95% CI 52% to 28% shorter, p<0.001). Adjusted ICU length of stay (LOS) was not significantly different between the two groups (6% shorter, 95% CI 16% shorter to 4% longer, p=0.22). Among those who died in the hospital, ICU LOS was 19% shorter in the intervention (95% CI 33% to 1% shorter, p=0.043). Adjusted hospital LOS was 26% shorter (95% CI 31% to 20% shorter, p < 0.001) with the intervention. PTSD symptoms were present in 9.1% of family respondents during the intervention versus 20.7% prior to the intervention (p=0.09). Mortality, family depressive symptoms, family satisfaction and quality of death and dying did not significantly differ between groups. Conclusions Proactive palliative care involvement on ICU rounds for high-risk patients was associated with more and earlier ICU family meetings and shorter hospital LOS. We did not identify differences in family satisfaction, family psychological symptoms, or family-rated quality of dying, but had limited power to detect such differences.

† Previous presentations are given in Appendix I. SummaryThe combination of lenalidomide-dexamethasone is active in multiple myeloma (MM). Preclinical data showed that the Akt inhibitor, perifosine, sensitized MM cells to lenalidomide and dexamethasone, providing the rationale for this Phase I, multicentre, single-arm study to assess the safety and determine the maximum-tolerated dose (MTD) of perifosine-lenalidomide-dexamethasone in relapsed and relapsed/refractory MM. Patients received escalating doses of perifosine 50-100 mg daily and lenalidomide 15-25 mg once daily on days 1-21 of each 28-d cycle, plus dexamethasone 20-40 mg weekly thereafter, as indicated. Thirty-two patients were enrolled across four dose cohorts. MTD was not reached, with 31 patients evaluable for safety/tolerability. The most common all-causality grade 1-2 adverse events were fatigue (48%) and diarrhoea (45%), and grade 3-4 neutropenia (26%), hypophosphataemia (23%), thrombocytopenia (16%), and leucopenia (13%). Among 30 evaluable patients, 73% (95% confidence interval, 57·5-89·2%) achieved a minimal response or better, including 50% with a partial response or better. Median progression-free survival was 10·8 months and median overall survival 30·6 months. Response was associated with phospho-Akt in pharmacodynamic studies. Perifosine-lenalidomide-dexamethasone was well tolerated and demonstrated encouraging clinical activity in relapsed and relapsed/refractory MM.

Funding and Support: By JACEP Open policy, all authors are required to disclose any and all commercial, financial, and other relationships in any way related to the subject of this article as per ICMJE conflict of interest guidelines (see www.icmje.org). The authors have stated that no such relationships exist.

In myeloma, achievement of very good partial response (VGPR) post-transplant is associated with prolonged overall (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). In this study of bortezomib, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin, and dexamethasone (VDD) in 40 patients with newly diagnosed myeloma (median follow-up 45.1 months), 2-/4-year OS estimates were 95.7%/86.5% versus 82.4%/58.2% for patients achieving ≥VGPR versus