Heart rate variability measurement: is there a role in predicting the admission outcome of palliative cancer patients?

Predicting the outcome of admission to palliative care units is a challenging task that faces palliative health-care professionals. Having an insight about the possibility of home discharge of cancer patients admitted to palliative care units may help in planning their future care. This is also important for other aspects of end-of-life care like better communication between the palliative care team and advanced cancer patients and their families (1). Numerous studies investigated different variables as predictors of prognosis in advanced cancer patients (1).