Relationship between corticosteroid effect on dyspnea, prognosis prediction, and actual survival

Abstract

Background and Aim: The effect of corticosteroids on dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer is expected to be associated with patient prognosis, though details about this are unclear. Thus, we aimed to investigate the relationship between prognostic indicators, actual survival, and the effect of corticosteroid administration on dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer.Method: We predicted the prognosis using the PaP score (palliative prognostic score) at the time of corticosteroid administration in 56 consecutive patients with cancer who started corticosteroid treatment for dyspnea at a single palliative care unit, and compared it with the actual survival. In addition, we investigated the relationship between the effect of corticosteroids on dyspnea, the prognostic score before administration, the actual survival, and other background factors.Results: The effect of corticosteroids strongly correlated with the actual survival, but not the prognostic score before corticosteroid administration, although it was correlated with prognostic score and actual survival. In addition, the effect of corticosteroids on dyspnea was less associated with other factors.Conclusion: The corticosteroid effect strongly associated with actual survival, but not the prognostic score. It was suggested that the effect of corticosteroids in patients could be predicted by using a more accurate prognosis prediction in the future.