[Refractory Watery Diarrhea Due to an End-Stage Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide Production Tumor Treated with Opium Tincture-A Case Report].

A female patient aged 77 years had refractory watery diarrhea caused by a vasoactive intestinal peptide production tumor. She had impaired consciousness. After presenting to our hospital, we administered opium tincture, after which the diarrhea ceased. Intravenous feeding was able to be stopped along with the potassium load and the infusion of octreotide, and loperamide. The antidiarrheal effects continued after opium tincture was stopped, and the patient was discharged home. These results reveal that opium tincture can be efficacious in treating end-stage refractory diarrhea.

[Does the Relationship between Home and Palliative Care Wards Change-The Influence of the Revision of Medical Compensation].

Home care and at-home-based palliative care for cancer patients are being improved bythrough a basic law on cancer control and subsequent institutional reforms in 2007. However, in the revision of the medical treatment fee in 2018, it is a big feature that the facilitystandard for the waiting days and the home return rate was built in the palliative care ward. The number of inpatients in our palliative care department was 3,835 in the 5 years from 2013 to 2018. It consists of 2,414 in general wards and 1,421 in the palliative care ward, regarding the home return rate, the total was 27.5%, but there were 891 from the general ward and 163 from the palliative care ward. In the future, the role of palliative care wards is expected to change, shorting the number of waiting days, and providing a much greater degree of flexibilityin the wayof promoting home care. The important thing is to establish a system to be able to choose the place of recuperation quickly depending on the patient, familysituation, and their hope. Hence, we aim to strengthen the home-visit system by emphasizing the continuityof medical treatment while maintaining the relationship of mutual trust among the local cooperative clinics.

[Examination of Patients That Died within 48 Hours after Urgent Hospitalization].

We offer inpatient support for end-stage cancer patients, not only in palliative care units, but also in general medical and long-term care units. We also provide outpatient palliative care and offer emergent backup for the regional home care clinics. From January 2014 to December 2016, 1,832 patients were hospitalized, and among them, 983 patients visited our hospital on an emergency basis. Among the urgent hospitalized patients, 378 patients returned home after adequate palliative care. But 605 patients had to stay admitted in the hospital until their time of death. Ninety-one patients died within 48 hours after urgent hospitalization. Of these 91 patients, 70% came to our hospital because of increasing dyspnea and decreased level of consciousness additionally, 36 of 91 patients had received treatment by home care clinic doctors, and 50% of them had hoped for at-home death. The patients' preference of treatment facility tends to vary depending on their general condition. Hence, we have to offer appropriate facilities for palliative care. Building good relationships between hospitals and regional home care clinics and creating a system for patients to choose the appropriate time and place for treatment with a smooth transition from their home to the hospital during their end-of-life period is important in this process.

The relative trending accuracy of noninvasive continuous hemoglobin monitoring during hemodialysis in critically ill patients.

The pulse CO-Oximeter (Radical-7; Masimo Corp., Irvine, CA) is a multi-wavelength spectrophotometric method for noninvasive continuous monitoring of hemoglobin (SpHb). Because evaluating the relative change in blood volume (ΔBV) is crucial to avoid hypovolemia and hypotension during hemodialysis, it would be of great clinical benefit if ΔBV could be estimated by measurement of SpHb during hemodialysis. The capability of the pulse CO-Oximeter to monitor ΔBV depends on the relative trending accuracy of SpHb. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the relative trending accuracy of SpHb by the pulse CO-Oximeter using Crit-Line as a reference device. In 12 patients who received hemodialysis (total 22 sessions) in the intensive care unit, ΔBV was determined from SpHb. Relative changes in blood volume determined from SpHb were calculated according to the equation: ΔBV(SpHb)=[starting SpHb]/[current SpHb] - 1. The absolute values of SpHb and hematocrit measured by Crit-Line (CL-Hct) showed poor correlation. On the contrary, linear regression analysis showed good correlation between ΔBV(SpHb) and the relative change in blood volume measured by Crit-Line [ΔBV(CL-Hct)] (r=0.83; P≤0.001). Bland-Altman analysis also revealed good agreement between ΔBV(SpHb) and ΔBV(CL-Hct) (bias, -0.77%; precision, 3.41%). Polar plot analysis revealed good relative trending accuracy of SpHb with an angular bias of 4.1° and radial limits of agreement of 24.4° (upper) and -16.2° (lower). The results of the current study indicate that SpHb measurement with the pulse CO-Oximeter has good relative trending accuracy.