Davide Facchinelli, Corinna Greco, Manuela Rigno, Daniela Menon, Pietro Manno, Leonardo Potenza, Claudio Cartoni, Marcello Riva, Laura Dalla Verde, Anna Varalta, Alberto Tosetto
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objectives: Patients with haematological malignancies (HM) experience high-intensity medical care near the end of life (EOL), have low rates of hospice and palliative care (PC) use and are more likely to die in the hospital. We compared the quality indicators for EOL care in patients followed by a haematologist with or without PC.
Methods: This observational, retrospective study evaluated a cohort of 196 consecutive patients with HM. We used a mean composite score for the aggressiveness of EOL. The quality indicators evaluated were chemotherapy, place of death, transfusions and hospital use in the last month of life.
Results: Eighty patients were offered PC and 116 were not. The composite score for aggressive EOL care was significantly higher for patients not followed by PC (2.2 vs 0.5; p<0.0001). None of the PC group patients was intubated or admitted to intensive care; 91.2% of the patients followed by PC died at home or in hospice, while 81.9% of the other patients died in the hospital.
Conclusion: Many patients who died of HM received intensive treatment near EOL. Our data support the value of integrating PC into the HM routine practice and can be the basis for new studies.
期刊介绍:
Published quarterly in print and continuously online, BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care aims to connect many disciplines and specialties throughout the world by providing high quality, clinically relevant research, reviews, comment, information and news of international importance.
We hold an inclusive view of supportive and palliative care research and we are able to call on expertise to critique the whole range of methodologies within the subject, including those working in transitional research, clinical trials, epidemiology, behavioural sciences, ethics and health service research. Articles with relevance to clinical practice and clinical service development will be considered for publication.
In an international context, many different categories of clinician and healthcare workers do clinical work associated with palliative medicine, specialist or generalist palliative care, supportive care, psychosocial-oncology and end of life care. We wish to engage many specialties, not only those traditionally associated with supportive and palliative care. We hope to extend the readership to doctors, nurses, other healthcare workers and researchers in medical and surgical specialties, including but not limited to cardiology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, neurology, oncology, paediatrics, primary care, psychiatry, psychology, renal medicine, respiratory medicine.