Inpatient palliative chemotherapy is associated with high mortality and aggressive end-of-life care in patients with advanced solid tumors and poor performance status

Table 1 Patient characteristics

	N	%
Male gender	95	41.7
Age: median (range)	56 (21–79)
Primary tumor site
Gastrointestinal	113	49.6
Colorectal	45	19.7
Gastric	38	16.6
Pancreatic/Biliary	13	5.7
Others	17	7.4
Breast	42	18.4
NSCLC	25	11
Sarcoma	13	5.7
Gynecologic	11	4.8
Genitourinary	9	3.9
Head and Neck	7	3.1
Skin (squamous cell carcinoma)	5	2.2
Unknown primary	3	1.3
Number of metastatic sites
≤ 2	96	42.1
> 2	132	57.9
Main symptom at hospitalization
Pain	35	15.4
Dyspnea	51	22.4
Infection-related symptoms	26	11.4
Bleeding/ Symptomatic anemia	15	6.6
Gastrointestinal symptoms	71	31.1
Neurologic symptoms	11	4.8
Fatigue	19	8.3
Chemotherapy line
First line	152	66.6
Second line or greater	76	33.3
Chemotherapy regimen
Single agent	55	24.1
Combination regimen	173	75.8
ECOG-PS
2	50	21.9
3	152	66.7
4	26	11.4
Anemia¹	119	52.2
Leukocytosis²	85	37.3
Lymphopenia³	86	37.7
Hypercalcemia⁴	23	10.1
Renal impairment⁵	21	9.2
Elevated liver function tests⁶	43	18.9
Total bilirubin elevation⁷	33	14.5
BMI
Underweight⁸	32	14
Normal⁹	123	53.9
Overweight¹⁰	37	16.2
Obesity¹¹	36	15.8
Charlson Index > 6	63	27.6

Abbreviations: NSCLC non-small cell lung cancer, ECOG-PS Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status, BMI body mass index
¹Hemoglobin < 10 g/dL; ²White Blood Cell count ≥10.000/mm³; ³Lymphocytes count ≤1500/mm³; ⁴Ionized Calcium ≥5.3 mEq/L or Total Corrected Calcium ≥10.2 mg/dL; ⁵Creatinine ≥ 1.5 mg/dL; ⁶Aspartate Aminotransferase or Alanine Aminotransferase ≥2.5 times upper limit of normal; ⁷Total Bilirubin ≥1.5 mg/dL; ⁸BMI < 18.5; ⁹BMI 18.5 to 24.9; ¹⁰BMI 25 to 29.9; ¹¹BMI ≥ 30

ISSN: 1472-684X