Trends in utilization of first-line palliative care in non-metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma.

Abstract

e16234 Background: Palliative care therapies are known to improve the quality of life and even the survival of some patients. Although non-metastatic (stages I-III) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients often present with significant symptoms, first-line palliative care treatment is uncommon in this setting. Here we characterized rates of palliative care utilization among non-metastatic HCC patients and determined factors associated with palliative care receipt. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of adult National Cancer Database patients diagnosed with metastatic HCC between 2004 and 2019. We used descriptive analysis for determining palliative care utilization, including palliative chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy, and pain management. We performed multivariable logistic regression analysis to assess the association of characteristics with palliative treatment utilization. Results: Among 121,151 patients diagnosed with stage I-III HCC, the utilization of first-line palliative care subsets was only a small portion of 3966 (3.3%). The most commonly used palliative care treatment was pain management (37.4%), followed by systemic chemotherapy (31.1%), radiotherapy (13%), surgery (9.9%), and combination therapies (8.6%). The higher stage, high comorbidity score, and decreased life expectancy were more likely to be associated with received PC. Stage 2 and 3 diseases were associated with increased odds of PC receipt compared to stage 1 disease (odds ratio [OR] = 1.63 [1.45-1.83] and OR = 3.57 [3.22-3.95]; respectively). Comorbidity score 3 was significantly more likely to receive PC than comorbidity score 0 (OR = 1.54 [1.41–1.69]). In addition, life expectancy >24 months was significantly less associated with PC receipt compared to life expectancy < 6 months (OR: 0.23 [0.20-0.26]). Conclusions: First-line palliative care subsets are underutilized to control symptoms among patients with non-metastatic HCC. Targeted efforts should be focused on increasing palliative care delivery in this group which has a vast potential to benefit.