title: Abdominal surgical emergencies in patients with advanced cancer.
abstract: Abdominal emergency in an advanced oncologic setting is defined as an acute life-threatening abdominal pathology in a patient with incurable cancer. These include bowel obstruction, infections and, more rarely, hemorrhage. To benefit the patient, surgery should both increase the survival and improve the quality of life. These two goals are of equal importance and must be achieved together. This is difficult because these patients are frail, often malnourished and have a poor performance status. They also have a high risk of post-operative morbidity and mortality, a major risk of symptom recurrence and a limited life expectancy. For patients near the end-of-life, a therapeutic decision for surgical intervention must respect ethical and legal standards. This review reports the surgical outcomes and median survival of these patients, specifies rules that must be known and respected, and presents non-operative interventional alternatives.
authors.affiliation: Département de chirurgie oncologique, Gustave-Roussy Cancer Campus, Grand Paris, 114, rue Édouard-Vaillant, 94805 Villejuif cedex, France. Electronic address: frederic.dumont@igr.fr.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dumont
authors.affiliation: Département de chirurgie oncologique, Gustave-Roussy Cancer Campus, Grand Paris, 114, rue Édouard-Vaillant, 94805 Villejuif cedex, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Goéré
authors.affiliation: Département de chirurgie oncologique, Gustave-Roussy Cancer Campus, Grand Paris, 114, rue Édouard-Vaillant, 94805 Villejuif cedex, France.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Honoré
authors.affiliation: Département de chirurgie oncologique, Gustave-Roussy Cancer Campus, Grand Paris, 114, rue Édouard-Vaillant, 94805 Villejuif cedex, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Elias
mesh_terms: D000005:Abdomen / Q000601:surgery*; D004630:Emergencies; D005602:France; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications* / Q000401:mortality; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000941:ethics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life
keywords: Advanced cancer; Bowel obstruction; Emergency; Palliative surgery