Urological symptoms and complications in palliative care

Abstract

Patients with serious illnesses such as advanced cancer experience many urological symptoms and complications that can significantly reduce their quality of life. This chapter will address several of these, including haematuria, urinary blood clots, strangury, tenesmus, vesicovaginal and vesicoenteric fistulae, and upper and lower urinary tract obstructions. A number of clinical assessment and treatment options are available for each of these. Clinicians need to be acquainted with the potential causes, and assessment and treatment options and consider their respective benefits versus burdens when deciding on the optimal management approach. The patient’s estimated survival and other factors such as wishes, setting of care and access to certain treatments should also be considered. This chapter describes the various assessment and treatment options for these complications in the context of cases, and their respective roles depending on the illness trajectory.