Palliative inpatient chemotherapy: Clinical benefit or harm?

Abstract

e19527 Background: Palliative chemotherapy (CT) is given with the goals of palliating cancer symptoms and prolonging life. Patients with a poor performance status (PS) generally derive less benefit from CT and may experience greater toxicity. Advanced cancer patients admitted to hospital generally have a poor PS, and yet palliative CT is often administered to hospitalized patients. The evidence to support palliative CT in hospitalized patients is scarce. We hypothesize that palliative in-patient CT does not result in meaningful clinical benefit. Methods: With ethics approval, a retrospective chart review was undertaken to report outcomes from in-patient CT at the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre between April 2008- January 2010. From hospital pharmacy records, all advanced solid tumor patients receiving in-patient palliative CT were identified. Patients receiving radical, curative, neo- or adjuvant therapy, or those admitted for an inpatient regimen, were excluded. The primary endpoints were overall survival following CT, place of discharge from hospital, and whether further CT was received. Results: We report 199 in-patients (23% breast cancer, 22% small cell lung cancer, 16% NSCLC, 39% other) who received CT (median 1 cycle, range 1-5) during the study period. The median age was 61 (range 19-88); 59% were female. The main reasons for hospital admission were dyspnea (31%) or pain (29%). At baseline 25% were anemic, 36% had leucocytosis and 70% were hypoalbuminemic (<30g/l). 67% were receiving 1st line CT. The median overall survival was 4.5 months (95% CI: 3.2 - 5.8). Longest survival was seen in SCLC patients (7.3m). 77% of patients were discharged home, but 17% died during the admission. 72% of patients received further systemic therapy. Factors significantly associated with shorter survival were hypoalbuminemia (HR 1.52, 95% CI 1.06- 2.18, p=0.02), and therapy in 2nd line or beyond (HR 2.10, [1.37-3.23], p<0.001). Receiving treatment beyond 1st line, and baseline leucocytosis, were both significantly associated with patients being less likely to be discharged home or receive further CT. Conclusions: While in-patient palliative CT is associated with short survival, many patients remain well enough to be discharged home and receive further therapy.