P012: Mortality rate of cancer patients by type presenting to the intensive care unit with sepsis.

Abstract

Introduction: Sepsis in cancer patients is associated with higher mortality rates than non-cancer patients. As a whole, hematological or solid tumor cancers have not demonstrated a prognostic link to sepsis survival rates in intensive care units (ICU), however poor-prognosis solid tumours (less than 25% 5-year survival) have not been investigated. This study examined ICU mortality rate and its predictive factors of patients with sepsis and poor-prognosis solid tumors in comparison to patients with higher prognosis solid tumours. Methods: A 6-year retrospective chart review of 79 patients with sepsis and solid tumour cancers and/or metastatic cancers admitted to the ICU was conducted. Information regarding mortality rate within 14 days, length of ICU stay, incidence of intubation, and other primary reasons for ICU admission was collected. Data was analysed using logistic regression. Results: Logistic regression results showed intubation as the only significant factor contributing to patient mortality (p < .001), with the odds of mortality being 12.3 times higher for intubated than non-intubated patients. Five-year cancer survival rate was the second best predictor (p = .082), while age, sex, and metastasis were also not significant predictive factors for survival. Intubated patients with poor prognosis cancers had the lowest survival chance as further indicated by the 16 patients who met this criterion, of which 14 died within two weeks of ICU admission. Conclusion: The fact that poor prognosis cancers in sepsis were not significantly predictive of ICU mortality supports current literature regarding solid tumors in general, while intubation being a significant predictor for mortality in patients with sepsis and cancer regardless of type builds on previous research. A limitation of this study is the relative low number of included cases with poor-prognosis cancer types. Further evaluation is needed to understand the implications of our results for end-of-life care and ICU admission for patients with these characteristics.