Terminal events in women dying of advanced breast cancer: improving the care for terminal breast cancer patients in Africa.

We studied the terminal events preceding death in all patients dying in hospital over a period of 10 years. Hepatomegaly, massive ascites, cachexia, jaundice, massive pleural effusion and haemoptysis were the most frequent terminal events. The predominance of visceral-related terminal events is unexplained but may be related to site-specific metastasis and premorbid organ pathology.