Using Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) to predict survival lengths of palliative care patients with and without cancer
Keywords:
Palliative care, Palliative Performance Scale, Survival timeAbstract
Research Background and Importance: Palliative care is crucial for prolonging lives and providing higher living standards in crisis patients. It is important to have a successful tool for predict survival lengths, and this is where Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) may be able to play a role.
Despite the fact that PPS is accepted for its reliability in predicting survival length and for its convenient application. Consequently, the question of whether PPS would predict different lengths of survival among these two groups of patients has yet to be answered.
Methodology: This was a retrospective cohort study on patients who had obtained palliative care at Palang Jai Center, or The Center of Patient Empowerment, at KhonKaen Hospital. The total population included 2,299 patients aged 15 years and older. The data collection process was conducted from January 1, 2015 to March 31, 2018. Statistics used for data analysis were: frequency, percentile, Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival curves, medians reported with their 95% Confidence Interval (CI), log-rank tests, specificity and sensitivity.
Results: Out of the total 2,299 patients who had obtained palliative care from KhonKaen Hospital, 774 patients were recruited for this research. The majority, 443 patients, was male (57.2%).There were 497 cancer patients (64.2%). and 277 non-cancer patients (35.8%). A comparison of survival lengths between cancer and non-cancer patients using PPS scores revealed that cancer patients with a PPS score of 30 had a significantly longer length of survival than their non-cancer counterparts (log-rank p-value >0.001).There was no significant difference in survival lengths between cancer and non-cancer patients with other PPS scores. The use of PPS scores for predicting survival lengths among the two groups of patients had high specificity (71.4-100 %) and low sensitivity (2.9-59.8%).
Conclusion: The PPS can be used to predict different lengths of survival among cancer and non-cancer patients, but it should not be used in the patient screening process.
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