Adverse events in deceased hospitalised cancer patients as a measure of quality and safety in end-of-life cancer care

Table 1 Characteristics

Variable	No anticancer treatment last 30 days n = 174		Anticancer treatment given last 30 days n = 73		P value ^a
Variable	n	%	n	%	P value ^a
Age (years) - median (min - max)	72	(18–93)	74	(40–91)	NS
Length of stay (days) - median (min - max)	8	(0–84)	12	(0–68)	0.03
Gender					NS
Female	68	39%	28	38%
Male	106	61%	45	62%
Hospital					< 0.01
District Hospital Lofoten	27	16%	6	8%
District Hospital Vesterålen	47	27%	11	15%
Central Hospital Bodø	100	57%	56	77%
Department					NS
Internal medicine	76	44%	44	60%
Surgery	91	52%	25	34%
Others	7	4%	4	6%
Primary malignancy					0.02
Upper gastrointestinal	34	20%	5	7%
Colorectal	27	15%	4	5%
Lung	38	22%	21	29%
Breast	7	4%	4	5%
Gynaecological	5	3%	2	3%
Urological	8	5%	6	8%
Male genitalia	11	6%	4	5%
Haematological and lymphoma	17	10%	22	30%
Unknown origin	15	8%	2	3%
Other ^b	12	7%	3	4%
Treatment intent					< 0.001
Palliative	135	78%	67	92%
Curative	2	1%	3	4%
Diagnostic	37	21%	3	4%
Anticancer treatment					< 0.001
Systemic treatment	64	37%	52	71%
Radiotherapy	5	3%	14	19%
Surgery	5	3%	7	10%
No treatment	100	57%	0	0%
Specialist palliative care					NS
> 30 days before death	33	19%	11	15%
< 30 days before death	32	18%	14	19%
Not involved	109	63%	48	66%

^aThe p value measures the difference between the two groups and was set to 0.05. NS not significant
^bThe group consist of patients with cancer from head-neck, sarcoma, malignant melanoma, eye and CNS

ISSN: 1472-684X