Abstract
Oncological emergencies are increasing. In cases where the cancer is far-advanced, should we give priority to lifesaving or palliation? To select a therapy, we consider that the prognosis is an important factor. For predicting the prognosis, the Palliative Prognostic Index (PPI) is useful but it is hard for doctors to use unless they are experts in palliative medicine. We developed a simple and easy method, which is a simplified conventional PPI. The new method uses the Performance States (PS) scores of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), so we refer to the method as PS-PPI. The purpose of this study is to review the utility of the PS-PPI. The subjects were 55 patients with colorectal cancer. If the PPI or PS-PPI were less than 4, we predicted that the patient would live more than six weeks. PPI had a sensitivity and specificity of 90.2% and 73.3%, respectively. For the PS-PPI the sensitivity and specificity were respectively 86.8% and 66.6%. Our results suggest that the PS-PPI is simpler and easier to apply than the PPI while offering similar usefulness.
