The impact of palliative care consults on deprescribing in palliative cancer patients

Abstract

The transition from active cancer treatment to palliative care often results in a shift in drug risk-benefit assessment which requires the deprescribing of various medications. Deprescribing in palliative cancer patients can benefit patients by reducing their pill burden, decrease potential side effects, and potentially decrease healthcare costs. In addition, a change in patients' goals of care (GOC) necessitates the alteration of drug therapy which includes both deprescribing and the addition of medications intended to improve quality of life. Depending on a patient's GOC, a medication can be considered as inappropriate. Primary: Comparison between potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) prior to the palliative care consult (PCC) versus after the PCC. Secondary: Association between PIMs and GOC. The study was a 1-year retrospective database review. The study included cancer patients seen by the PCC team at the University of Alberta Hospital. The OncPal guidelines were used to identify and determine the number of PIMs prior to the PCC and after the PCC. The reduction in PIMs prior to PCC versus after the PCC was statistically significant (p value < 0.001), demonstrating the PCC has a positive significant impact on deprescribing PIMs. For our secondary outcome, an overall decrease in PIMs was observed with the changes of GOC. The strength of the correlations was low (r < 0.1), and the p value was 0.056. This study shows the positive impact a PCC has on deprescribing and reveals the importance of using guidelines for deprescribing in palliative cancer patients.