Clinical and paraclinical manifestations in cancer patients referred to the emergency room of one tertiary hospital in Northern IRAN

WCRJ 2017; 4 (2): e888
DOI: 10.32113/wcrj_20176_888

  Topic: Medical oncology     Category:

Abstract

Objective: An Emergency Department is one of the major places for quick access to the complaints of cancer patients. Most cancer patients referred to an Emergency Department at least once during their disease period. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the clinical and paraclinical manifestations in cancer patients referred to the Emergency Room of one tertiary hospital in northern IRAN in 2016.
Patients and Methods: This is a cross-sectional research on 140 patients with different cancers referred to the Emergency Room of one tertiary hospital in northern of IRAN in 2016. Age, gender, type of cancer, metastasis, type of treatment, and laboratory data were collected and recorded in the designed form. Data were then inserted into SPSS software and analyzed.
Results: The most clinical manifestations included pain (37.1%), nausea and vomiting (33.6%), and weakness and lethargy (30%). The most frequent cancers included colon cancer (26.4%), breast cancer (14.3%), and gastric cancer (12.9%), respectively. Among the clinical symptoms, fever was seen most in leukemia and lymphoma; ascites was seen most in colon, pancreas and breast cancers; nausea and vomiting were seen most in breast, gastric, colon and pancreas cancers; constipation was only seen in colon cancer; loss of appetite was seen most in gastric and esophagus cancers; pain was seen most in colon cancer and multiple myeloma; dyspnea was seen most in lung and breast cancers; weakness and lethargy were seen most in gastric and colon cancers. Loss of appetite in males and pain in females were significantly higher. Leukopenia and anemia were significantly higher in males.
Conclusions: Using preventative methods and providing patients with required training may be useful in alleviating onset of symptoms such as nausea and vomiting in patients, reducing the frequency of referral of patients to Emergency Departments, and lowering financial burden of treatment costs of the patients.

To cite this article

Clinical and paraclinical manifestations in cancer patients referred to the emergency room of one tertiary hospital in Northern IRAN

WCRJ 2017; 4 (2): e888
DOI: 10.32113/wcrj_20176_888

Publication History

Submission date: 22 Mar 2017

Revised on: 12 Apr 2017

Accepted on: 02 May 2017

Published online: 27 Jun 2017