Authors (including presenting author) :
CHENG OY(1), TANG CM(2), WOO KW(2), LEUNG WY(1) and KWOK OL(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Occupational Therapy, Caritas Medical Centre (2) Department of Medical and Geriatrics, Caritas Medical Centre
Introduction :
Brain metastases are associated with poor prognosis and worst neurological functional outcome, however, its heterogeneity made survival prediction and palliative rehabilitation difficult.
Objectives :
To explore the role of Modified Barthel Index (MBI) in survival prediction, and to compare the performance of MBI and Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) in predicting 30-day survival.
Methodology :
This is a retrospective study, patients with newly diagnosed brain metastases, who was admitted to the Palliative care unit of Caritas Medical Centre between October 2020 to December 2021, with MBI administered by the occupational therapist were enrolled. Spearman's rank correlation test was performed to study the correlation between MBI and PPS. The Fisher’s exact test was applied to investigate the association between MBI and PPS in 30 days of survival.
Result & Outcome :
Twelve subjects were identified. Half were female, with a median age 79.5 years old. The median MBI and PPS were 23 and 45 respectively. The median survival was 32 days. Both MBI and PPS correlated with survival time significantly (Spearman rho=0.663 & 0.707, p=0.019 & 0.010 respectively). Patients with MBI scores less than 30 were significantly associated with survival days less than 30 days (p=0.028). However, PPS failed to demonstrate similar association (p=0.242). While MBI and PPS correlated with survival, MBI demonstrated superiority to PPS in predicting 30-day mortality. MBI may help formulating treatment and rehabilitation plans for patients with brain metastases by assisting prognostication. Multicenter studies with larger sample size are needed to examine MBI’s prognostic value in this group of patients.
