The project was

also supported in part by grant UL 1RR025747 from the National Center of Research Resources, National Institutes of Health, USA. Betsy Sleath, Guadalupe Ayala, Dennis Williams and Gail Tudor designed the study. Delesha Carpenter, Ashley Beard and Christopher Gillette helped analyse the data and provided feedback on the draft manuscript. Betsy Sleath, Delesha Carpenter, Guadalupe Ayala and Gail Tudor drafted the manuscript. All Authors state that they had complete access to the study data that support the publication. Selleck GSK458 “
“An important goal of hospice care is to relieve pain and suffering of terminal cancer patients. Anticholinergic medications are effective in the symptom palliation among terminal cancer patients. However, use of these medications has been associated with increased Selleck Galunisertib risk of side effects, which might lead to premature mortality. Short lengths of stay in hospice care leave patients with a higher level of unmet needs. The study was conducted to examine the effect

of increasing anticholinergic load on the length of stay of cancer patients in hospice care in the USA. The National Home and Hospice Care Survey 2007 was Phosphatidylethanolamine N-methyltransferase used as the data source. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to investigate the risk of death among users of moderate and high anticholinergic load compared with users of low anticholinergic load in presence of other prognostic factors. Cancer patients on a moderate anticholinergic

load had a 12.7% lower hazard of death (P = 0.0244), while those on a high anticholinergic load had a 15.6% lower hazard of death (P = 0.0071) as compared with those patients on a low anticholinergic load. Among other prognostic factors, non-elderly age group, male gender, white race, metropolitan hospice agency, non-profit hospice agency, severe activities of daily living dependency and cognitive impairment were significantly associated with a higher probability of death. These results provide no evidence for increasing anticholinergic load increasing mortality in cancer patients using hospice care. Thus, high anticholinergic load might have conferred a protective effect on the patients because of better symptom control.