The Prognosis in Palliative care Study II (PiPS2)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Prognosis in Palliative care Study II (PiPS2)
IRAS ID
199078
Contact name
Patrick Stone
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UCL
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Doctors’ estimates about how long patients with advanced cancer have left to live are not very accurate. The Prognosis in Palliative care Scales (PiPS) were developed in order to provide an objective aid to clinicians’ intuition. Two different PiPS scores can be calculated depending upon whether or not the patient has capacity to agree to providing a blood test. Before recommending PiPS for routine use it is important to check that the scores are accurate and reliable. Four other scores may also be useful and need to be tested: the Palliative Prognostic Index (PPI), the Palliative Performance Scale (PPS), the Palliative Prognostic (PaP) score and the Feliu Prognostic Nomogram (FPN).
The aim of our study is to check that PiPS is accurate when used in a different group of cancer patients and to compare its accuracy against clinicians’ survival estimates. We will also look at the performance of PaP, FPN, PPI and PPS. We will ask patients with advanced incurable cancer, who have recently been referred to palliative (“hospice”) care services, to take part in our study. If patients have capacity then, with their approval, we will collect information from their medical notes and we will take a blood test. If patients lack capacity then we will ask their relatives for permission to record information from their medical notes. We will not take blood tests from patients who lack capacity. With this information we will be able to calculate PiPS, PaP, FPN, PPI & PPS scores. When patients die we will be able to work out the accuracy of the various predictions.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/YH/0132
Date of REC Opinion
12 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion