Effect of postoperative complications on adjuvant chemotherapy use in stage III colon cancer.

Abstract

551 Background: The National Quality Forum has endorsed the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in stage III colon cancer yet a substantial treatment gap exists in the United States. Our objective was to evaluate the contribution of postoperative complications on the use of adjuvant therapy after colectomy for cancer. Methods: Patients from the ACS NSQIP and the NCDB who underwent colon resection for cancer were linked (2006-2008) to create a novel dataset containing robust information on comorbidities, complications, and oncologic variables. The association of complications on adjuvant chemotherapy use was assessed using multivariable regression models. Results: From 140 hospitals, 2414 patients underwent resection for stage III colon adenocarcinoma (open colectomy: 64%, laparoscopic colectomy: 36%). Overall, 896 (37.1%) patients were not treated with adjuvant therapy, of which 116 (12.9%) had documented severe comorbidities or advanced age as the reason for no adjuvant therapy receipt. Of the remaining 780 patients, 202 (25.9%) had a potential complication that could account for not receiving adjuvant therapy: 33 perioperative deaths and 169 patients with ≥1 serious complications including organ space infection (n=32), wound dehiscence (n=12), respiratory failure (n=48), pneumonia (n=45), renal failure (n=22) and septic shock (n=38). The remaining 611 patients did not have a documented reason for not receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. Complications independently associated with decreased adjuvant therapy use were renal failure (OR 0.17, 95% CI 0.0-0.59), respiratory failure (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.11-0.51) and pneumonia (OR 0.36, 95% CI 0.18-0.75). Organ space infection was not associated with decreased use of adjuvant therapy, but significantly increased time to treatment (69 vs. 45 days, P<0.05). Superficial SSI did not decrease adjuvant therapy use or delay treatment. Conclusions: Serious postoperative complications explained one quarter of the adjuvant chemotherapy treatment gap among stage III colon cancer patients and should be considered in quality assessment of colon cancer care. Judging provider performance on quality metrics is challenging without clinical data.