A comparison of symptom prevalence in far advanced cancer, AIDS, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and renal disease Little attention has been paid to the symptom management needs of patients with life-threatening diseases other than cancer. In this study, researchers aimed to determine to what extent patients with progressive chronic diseases have similar symptom profiles. A systematic search of medical databases and textbooks identified 64 original studies reporting the prevalence of 11 common symptoms among end-stage patients with cancer, AIDS, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or renal disease. Analyzing the data, investigators found that the prevalence of the 11 symptoms was often widely but consistently spread across the five diseases. Three symptoms--pain, breathlessness, and fatigue--were found among more than 50% of patients, for all five diseases. There appears to be a common pathway toward death for malignant and nonmalignant diseases. The designs of symptom prevalence studies need to be improved because of method disparities in assessing symptoms and in study design. Solano JP, Gomes B, Higginson IJ. Adapted from J Pain Symptom Manage. 2006 Jan;31(1):58-69. PMID 16442483 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16442483&query_hl=35 Credit: PubMed, developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City ©2005 Continuum Health Partners, Inc. www.stoppain.org/palliative_care