The corticosteroid of choice within palliative care is Dexamethasone but Prednisolone is used at times. Below is a table of approximate anti-inflammatory equivalencies of several corticosteroids.

Dexamethasone has several advantages for patients with malignancy
• Lower sodium retention potency and hence reduced likelihood of fluid retention
• Ability to administer larger dose with small number of tablets.
• Tablets dispersed in small volumes of water.
• Available as subcutaneous injection.

SIDE EFFECTS
• Doses >4mg od are likely to lead to significant side effects after several weeks.
• Doses <4mg od are often tolerated in patients with a prognosis of months.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200819065359/https://www.palliativedrugs.com/download/08_0405_SPAG%20steroids.pdf


https://www.palliativedrugs.com/download/08_0405_SPAG%20steroids.pdf