Oncology consults in admitted cancer patients: The ways to reduce length of stay.

Abstract

e13516 Background: The cancer patients, while being admitted to the hospital often have an oncologist consult (OC) through the admission. The goal of the study is to assess, whether OC impact the length of stay (LOS) and to define the group of cancer patients in whom omitting the OC can decrease LOS. Methods: We reviewed 415 admissions of cancer patients from 1/1/2018 to 11/30/2020 to the both campuses of Mercy Catholic Medical Center. We included patients who are 18 years or older with confirmed malignancy. We excluded COVID positive, patients who died during admission, were transferred to tertiary care institutions, or were recommended hospice care, but decided to continue treatment despite poor prognosis. Patient with hematologic disorders were excluded as well. The LOS of stay in cancer patients with and without OC will be compared using two tailed unpaired t-test and Mann-Whitney test ( < 20 admissions in each group, or one of the groups had a largely skewed data). Sub-analysis will be done accounting for Charlson score, spread of the disease and reason of admission (cancer vs non-cancer related). Statistical software Prism 9 will be used for analysis. Results: 290 admissions were selected using inclusion and exclusion criteria. Throughout all admission 234 admission had OC and mean LOS was 4.86 day compare to 4.23 in 56 patients, who did not have OC. Patients with non-cancer related (non-CR) admissions who had Charlson score ≤6 and no OC had shorter LOS (13 admission with median LOS 3 days) compared to those who had OC (11 admissions with LOS 7days), p 0.0462. Also, patient with non-CR admission and localized cancer tend have shorter LOS when no OC involved (15 admission with median LOS 6 days) compare to OC (16 admissions with median LOS 2.5 days), p 0.0365. No other significant difference in LOS were observed (Table). Conclusions: The cancer patients admitted for the reasons not related to their primary malignancy and who have either localized disease or Charlson score < 6 have shorter length of stay when OC not done. The limitation of the current study is the small number of patients in analysis subgroups, as well as fact that patients who had OC may have more severe disease during admission, despite the fact that patient had same extend of disease and comorbidities. Study with larger number of admissions may be necessary to confirm findings of this study.[Table: see text]