Impact of homelessness on outcomes among pancreatic cancer hospitalization: Insight from the 2016-2020 National Inpatient Sample.

Abstract

e16264 Background: Homelessness is a major socio-economic issue in the United States, affecting an estimated 171 per 100,000 persons in certain states. While pancreatic cancer (PC) tends to have a poor prognosis, the disease requires an early diagnosis, proper care, and follow-ups. As there is a paucity of data highlighting differences in patient characteristics and outcomes of homeless patients with PC, a retrospective study was conducted via a national database. Methods: We used data from the 2016-2020 National Inpatient Sample (NIS), the most extensive hospital database, to identify patients with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Patients with a status of “homeless” were located via the ICD-10 code “Z590”, per suggestions from HCUP and past studies. Several differences in patient characteristics were explored between homeless cases of PC and non-homeless cases via Pearson’s Chi-Square tests. Finally, the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% Confidence intervals (CI) of various outcomes such as mortality, pulmonary embolism, septicemia, and hepatic failure were calculated via multivariable logistic regression models. Results: Our study identified 544855 pancreatic cancer cases, including 1380 patients classified as homeless (0.3%). 81.5% of homeless patients were males (vs. 52.1%), and 24.6% were admitted on weekends (vs. 20.6%). Moreover, Medicaid was the prime insurer among homeless patients (47.6% vs. 8.6%) with a higher mean hospital charge ($86796 vs. $70610). Racial differences were also observed as 51.9% of homeless cases were Whites (vs. 71.2%), while 31.6% (vs. 13.8%) were Blacks, and 11.3% (vs. 8.2%) were Hispanics. A higher proportion of homeless cases had palliative care utilization (27.9% vs. 19.1%), a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) order (25.7% vs. 23.1%), and required pancreatic and proximal biliary dilation/stenting (4.0% vs. 2.2%). Homeless patients admitted with pancreatic cancer also expressed higher odds of in-hospital mortality (8.7% vs. 7.4%, aOR 1.625, 95% CI 1.280-2.064, p<0.01). No statistical significance was found for events of pulmonary embolism (aOR 1.231, p=0.160), septicemia (aOR 1.044, p=0.674), and hepatic failure (aOR 0.892, p=0.549). Conclusions: Homeless patients with PC were linked with higher in-patient mortality. Various racial and socio-economic differences were also observed. Several efforts to ameliorate access to care among homeless patients and an early diagnosis may help improve the outcomes.