Top Palliative & Supportive Care Research Papers

Overall: This multicenter randomized trial supports a readily implementable steroid-sparing antiemetic strategy with preserved control of emesis, but incomplete dexamethasone-free and safety results limit certainty about its full net benefit.

Overall: This large US external validation provides precise evidence that the EOLCI discriminates risk reasonably well but is poorly calibrated, supporting caution and local recalibration rather than routine reliance on its predictions.

Overall: This small randomized placebo-controlled trial suggests that oral oxybutynin improves patient-reported ADT-associated hot flashes, but short follow-up, incomplete precision data, and absent adverse-event results limit confidence and immediate applicability.

Overall: A strong US multicenter trial using patient-important outcomes supports hepatologist-delivered palliative care as a specialty-care alternative, but its direct relevance and implementability for primary care are limited.

Overall: A sizable controlled trial found modest short-term improvements in patient-important symptoms, but limited precision reporting, uncertain clinical significance, and no durability or safety data temper its impact.

Overall: A large, carefully analyzed US observational study suggests a modest agitation benefit from an easily implemented alternative to antipsychotics, but residual confounding, the nursing-home-specific population, and absent comparative safety results limit its impact.

Overall: A well-conducted randomized trial found a modest insomnia benefit from brief CBT-I but no fatigue benefit and no overall benefit from bright light therapy.

Overall: Digital monitoring produced meaningful quality-of-life and hospitalization benefits in advanced cancer, but specialty staffing needs and limited direct applicability to routine US primary care constrain its overall impact.

Overall: A large, precise multicenter study found meaningful improvements in advance care planning processes with visit-timed prompts, but its post hoc observational comparison and lack of direct patient outcomes limit confidence and impact.

Overall: This large multicenter US study identifies clinically important associations between palliative care involvement and less intensive end-of-life treatment, but its retrospective design, absent preference-concordance measures, and lack of absolute adjusted effects limit causal and practice-changing conclusions.