Regresar

Latin American Guide of Clinical Practice for the treatment of massive hemorrhage in palliative patients in terminal situation

Abstract:

Background: Palliative care in Latin America is developing heterogeneously. This inequality makes it necessary to establish groups that would provide accessible information to doctors in Latin America. Considering the last days of life there are medical situations that may require urgent attention. Among the emergencies at the end of life we identify that «lethal hemorrhage» was the most reported. Material and methods: Given the importance of «lethal hemorrhage» as a medical emergency in the last hours of life, we set the to investigate the available medical literature on the subject. To search we used the PubMed search engine. The identified documents were downloaded and shared by two researchers. This information was summarized and presented to a group of prominent and proven Latin American experts on palliative medicine (DOSS Group). Results: As described in the methodology we identified 34 documents with different levels of evidence. We had access to 27 documents. The information obtained from them is presented in the form of a clinical practice guide. Conclusions: Several authors consider massive hemorrhage as a palliative emergency. Its occurrence may even require end-of-life sedation. It is necessary that clinicians have information that may help their decision making for the management of this medical condition.