Chemotherapy use at the end of life in Brazil.

Abstract

e24003 Background: Chemotherapy in the last days of life is not associated with a survival benefit, and recent data suggest it may cause harm by decreasing quality of life and increasing costs. Both ESMO and ASCO have published position statements encouraging discussions about the appropriate cessation of chemotherapy. End-of-life chemotherapy rates vary worldwide but in summary, up to a fifth of cancer patients are treated with chemotherapy in the last month of life with no clear benefits. The aim of this study is to describe the rate of chemotherapy use in the last month of life in patients who are candidates for palliative care in Brazil. Methods: It is a prospective non-concurrent cohort carried out from a database developed through probabilistic and deterministic linkage of data from information systems of the Brazilian Public Health System. The study population is composed of all patients who started cancer treatment between 2009 and 2014 and who was hospitalized at least 1 time after starting treatment. To address the indication for palliative care, patients whose death occurred within one year after the first hospitalization were selected. Results: A total of 299,202 patients started cancer treatment in that period and 62,249 died 1year after hospitalization. Among the deceased patients, the median age was 62 years, 50.9% of them were in stage IV and 34.1% in stage III and 46% lived in the southeastern region of the country. The most common cancers were lung (n = 17805; 28.6%) colorectal (n = 12273; 19.7%) and gastric (n = 10248; 16.5%). The average number of hospitalizations was 2.7 and 89% of these patients required emergency hospitalization. About half (45,4%; n=28,250) of the patients underwent chemotherapy at the last 30 days of life. The rates of use of chemotherapy in the last month was 44% for lung cancer, 74,4% for colon, 50.2% for gastric and 51.8% breast cancers. Conclusions: Despite international recommendations on the use of chemotherapy at the end of life, this seems to be a common practice unfortunately. Measures to implement early palliative care should be a priority for the care of cancer patients in Brazil.