Brain Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Cancer, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, treatment.

Practice of palliative sedation in children with brain tumors and sarcomas at the end of life.

Postovsky S, Moaed B, Krivoy E, Ofir R, Ben Arush MW

Department of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Meyer Children's Hospital, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel. s postovsky@rambam.health.gov.il

Despite progress in the treatment of pediatric cancer, approximately 25% of these children will die of the disease. The last period of life is characterized by profound physical and psychological suffering, both of the children and their loved ones. Adequate alleviation of this suffering becomes the priority in the management of these patients. The authors retrospectively evaluated the indications, incidence, and characteristics of palliative sedation (PS) in 19 children with brain tumors (BT) and 18 with sarcomas (S) at the end of life. Twelve of the 18 S patients received PS, as did 13 of the 19 BT patients. Indications for initiation of PS for those with BT were seizures and/or pain, for those with S were pain and/or respiratory insufficiency. It was concluded that PS may be the only efficacious and safe treatment for the alleviation of suffering in these children at the end of life, despite differing indications.

Published 21 August 2007 in Pediatr Hematol Oncol, 24(6): 409-15.
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