Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Mar 26;10(3):e0120827.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120827. eCollection 2015.

Hospital admission of cancer patients: avoidable practice or necessary care?

Gianmauro Numico  1 , Antonella Cristofano  1 , Alessandro Mozzicafreddo  1 , Olga Elisabetta Cursio  1 , Pierfrancesco Franco  2 , Giulia Courthod  1 , Antonio Trogu  1 , Alessandra Malossi  1 , Mariella Cucchi  1 , Zuzana Sirotovà  1 , Maria Rosa Alvaro  1 , Anna Stella  1 , Fulvia Grasso  1 , Silvia Spinazzé  1 , Nicola Silvestris  3
Affiliations

Hospital admission of cancer patients: avoidable practice or necessary care?

Gianmauro Numico et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Cancer patients are frequently admitted to hospital due to acute conditions or refractory symptoms. This occurs through the emergency departments and requires medical oncologists to take an active role. The use of acute-care hospital increases in the last months of life.

Patients and methods: We aimed to describe the admissions to a medical oncology inpatient service within a 16-month period with respect to patients and tumor characteristics, and the outcome of the hospital stay.

Results: 672 admissions of 454 patients were analysed. The majority of admissions were urgent (74.1%), and were due to uncontrolled symptoms (79.6%). Among the chief complaints, dyspnoea occurred in 15.7%, pain in 15.2%, and neurological symptoms in 14.5%. The majority of the hospitalizations resulted in discharge to home (60.6%); in 26.5% the patient died and in 11.0% was transferred to a hospice. Admissions due to symptoms correlated with a longer hospital stay and a higher incidence of in-hospital death.

Conclusion: We suggest that hospital use is not necessarily a sign of inappropriately aggressive care: inpatient care is probably an unavoidable step in the cancer trajectory. Optimization of inpatient supportive procedures should be a specific task of modern medical oncology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

References

    1. Barnett K, Mercer SW, Norbury M, Watt G, Wyke S, Guthrie B. Epidemiology of multimorbidity and implications for health care, research, and medical education: a cross-sectional study. Lancet. 2012; 380: 37–43. 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60240-2 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Teno JM, Gozalo PL, Bynum JPW, Leland NE, Miller SC, Morden NE, et al. Change in end-of-life care for Medicare beneficiaries. Site of death, place of care, and health care transitions in 2000, 2005, and 2009. JAMA. 2013;309: 470–477. 10.1001/jama.2012.207624 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Earle CC, Landrum MB, Souza JM, Neville BA, Weeks JC, Ayanian JZ. Aggressiveness of cancer care near the end of life: is it a quality-of-care issue? J Clin Oncol. 2008;26: 3860–3866. 10.1200/JCO.2007.15.8253 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Manzano JGM, Luo R, Elting LS, George M, Suarez-Almazor ME. Patterns and predictors of unplanned hospitalization in a population-based cohort of elderly patients with GI cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2014;32:3527–3533. 10.1200/JCO.2014.55.3131 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yates M, Barrett A. Oncological emergency admissions to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital: an audit of current arrangements and patient satisfaction. Clin Oncol. 2009; 21:226–233. 10.1016/j.clon.2008.12.006 - DOI - PubMed