Pattern and outcome of admission to a medical oncology inpatient service

Inpatient medical oncology has not been properly described in many countries including Turkey.

We aimed in this article to describe the admissions to a medical oncology inpatient service within a 2-year period with respect to patient characteristics, their malignancies, and outcome of admission.

A total of 5305 cancer patients were seen at our hospital, and 779 (14.7%) were hospitalized. The most common reason for admission was chemotherapy administration (81.2%). The median number of hospitalizations was 1 (range, 1-21). The length of stay was between 1 to 189 days with a median of 4 days. Most of the hospitalizations resulted in discharge; few patients died (77 patients; 9.9% of the hospitalized patients and 4.4% of the hospitalizations).

Inpatient care constitutes an important aspect of medical oncology. Given the high rate of hospitalization for chemotherapy administration and the rising cost of inpatient care, it is evident that a shift from inpatient care to outpatient care (day hospital or ambulatory) is urgently needed.