Timing of referral to outpatient palliative care for patients with haematologic malignancies. (21st July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Patel, Sameer; Hoge, Geordyn; Fellman, Bryan; Kaur, Sharanpreet; Heung, Yvonne; Bruera, Eduardo; Hui, David
• Is Part Of: British journal of haematology. Volume 198:Number 6(2022)
• Page Start: 974
• Page End: 982
• Publication Date: 2022-07-21
• Subjects: haematologic malignancy -- leukaemia -- lymphoma -- palliative care -- referral -- supportive care; Hematology -- Periodicals; Blood -- Diseases -- Periodicals; 616.15
• DOI: 10.1111/bjh.18365
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-1048

Abstract

Summary: Outpatient palliative‐care facilitates timely supportive‐care access; however, there is a paucity of studies on the timing of referral in the outpatient setting for patients with haematologic malignancy. We examined the trend in timing of outpatient palliative‐care referrals over a 10‐year period in patients with haematologic malignancies at our comprehensive cancer centre. We included consecutive patients with a diagnosis of haematologic malignancy who were seen at our outpatient palliative‐care clinic between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019. We collected data on patient characteristics, symptom burden and supportive‐care interventions at outpatient palliative‐care consultation. The primary outcome was time from outpatient palliative‐care consultation to death or last follow‐up. In all, 384 patients were referred by leukaemia ( n = 143), lymphoma ( n = 213), and stem cell transplant ( n = 28) services. The median time from outpatient palliative‐care referral to death was 3.4 years (IQR 2.4–5.3) with a significant increase in both the number of referrals per year ( p = 0.047) and the timing of referral between 2010 and 2019 ( p = 0.001). Patients with haematologic malignancies were referred in a timely fashion to our outpatient palliative‐care clinic, with earlier and greater numbers of referrals over time.