Prognostic Evaluation in Patients with Advanced Cancer in the Last Months of Life: ESMO Clinical Practice Guideline.

Patients with cancer may have potentially curable disease or may live for many years despite incurable cancer. However, these guidelines specifically relate to patients with advanced incurable cancer who are expected to live for a few months or less. Distinction is made between patients with a few months to live, who may or may not be receiving anticancer therapies, and those thought to be imminently dying (i.e. within days or weeks). This guideline focuses on the prediction of death or length of survival and not other clinically-important outcomes such as response to treatment, preferred place of death or length of inpatient stay.