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Palliative cancer care - nausea & vomiting - Management
How should I investigate nausea and vomiting in palliative care?
- With the person and their carers and family, determine what investigations are appropriate for the person's stage of illness:
- The choice of diagnostic tests should be based on the stage of disease, the person's prognosis, the risk-to-benefit ratio of the investigation, and the wishes of the person and their family.
- Blood tests to exclude hypercalcaemia and uraemia are among the most useful investigations in all people with nausea or vomiting in a palliative care situation in primary care.
- Other investigations are more appropriately done in secondary care (e.g. abdominal radiography to exclude constipation or intestinal obstruction, ultrasonography to detect ascites), but the primary care team may also be able to arrange these and receive the results.
Basis for recommendation
- This recommendation is pragmatic advice, based on a review article by a specialist nurse in palliative care [Kinley, 2005].
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