CONTEXT The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) measures the severity of nine symptoms. Constipation and sleep disturbance are common in patients with cancer, but are not currently included in the ESAS. OBJECTIVES To validate the numerical rating scale (NRS) versions of ESAS and its revised version (ESAS-r), with the additional symptoms of constipation and sleep (CS), and to assess pati...

The purpose of this paper is to appraise theoretically and empirically the status of ESAs in Nigeria. Government agencies, organized private sector, industrial associations and international institutions constitute ESAs in Nigeria and have been in the forefront of MSMEs’ development, through enabling environment. The study used a qualitative multiple case study by purposively contacting 56 SME ...

Anemia is common in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). Though erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) have been strongly endorsed in guidelines, it is of particular financial interest. Recently, the reimbursement of ESAs in non-dialytic patients was started by the Korean National Health Insurance System. Thus, we investigated the impact of the reimbursement of ESAs on the ane...

Pharmacovigilance (PV) is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or other problems related to medical products after they have been licensed for marketing. The purpose of PV is to advance the safe use of marketed medical products. Regulatory agencies and license holders collaborate to collect data reported by health car...

BACKGROUND Hospices are now mandated to perform routine quality assessment under the final Medicare Hospice Conditions of Participation, creating an opportunity to explore standardized approaches to monitoring hospice quality. OBJECTIVE We report hospice staff experiences using a standardized symptom assessment instrument, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS), in a pilot study design...

CONTEXT Symptom screening is important for appropriate symptom management. It remains uncertain as to which scores on the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised (ESAS-r) comprise the optimal cutoff points to determine symptom severity for Japanese cancer patients. OBJECTIVES To investigate optimal cutoff points for individual ESAS-r items for detecting symptom severity and to evaluate the...

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy-induced anaemia is a common and significant complication of chemotherapy treatment. Blood transfusion and administration of Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents (ESAs) either alone or in combination with iron are the most widely used therapeutic options. In Greece, ESAs are among the top ten therapeutic groups with the highest pharmaceutical expenditure, since they are full...