Advance care planning and specialty palliative care utilization for patients with hematologic malignancies who undergo allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant.

Abstract

18 Background: Unlike most metastatic solid tumors, many advanced hematologic malignancies are treated with curative intent. Accordingly, aggressive interventions often continue until late in the disease course because it can be difficult to discern when cure is no longer possible. This is particularly true for recipients of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (alloHCT). We hypothesized that alloHCT recipients and their providers would be less likely to utilize specialty Palliative Care (PC) services or to engage in early communication regarding advance care planning. Methods: This was a single-center, retrospective chart review of all alloHCT recipients at the University of California, San Francisco who died between 2012-2016. Patients were excluded if there was insufficient data available for analysis. Results: Of the 122 alloHCT deaths identified, 75 met inclusion criteria. The median age at alloHCT was 55, and most patients were Caucasian (69%), were transplanted for acute leukemia or MDS (77%), and received a well-matched allograft (81%). 57% died from disease relapse and 20% died from treatment-related causes. 61% of alloHCT recipients died in the hospital, with 37% dying in an ICU. 52% of patients received chemotherapy within 2 months of death, and 17% within 2 weeks. While 79% of patients were DNR/DNI at the time of death, the median time from change of code status to death was 4.5 days. 80% of patients had no prior code status documented in an outpatient note, and a specific goals-of-care conversation was documented in < 25% of outpatient charts. The PC service was consulted for the majority of patients (57%), although the median time from consultation to death was 13 days, with 23% of all consultations occurring within 3 days of death. Only 16% of patients accessed specialty PC services more than 30 days prior to their death. Conclusions: Despite high rates of both disease- and treatment-related mortality, as well as significant morbidity associated with alloHCT, recipients of alloHCT at our institution infrequently engaged in early conversations about end-of-life care and rarely utilized specialty PC services more than 1 month prior to dying.