ICU Deaths in Patients With Advanced Cancer

A significant number of advanced cancer admissions to the intensive care unit (ICU) are inappropriate in that they do not result in prolonged survival. No clear consensus criteria for reasonable admissions of advanced cancer patients have been developed.

We established four criteria for reasonable admissions to ICU in patients who suffered from advanced, incurable cancer: post procedure complication, recent notification of cancer, ECOG performance status of 0-1, and life expectancy of more than 6 months. Based on these criteria, we reviewed the charts of all patients who died in the ICU at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) affiliated Veteran's Affairs Medical Center between 10/2005 and 10/2010. We identified patients with advanced, incurable cancer and performed an in depth review of their charts.

In the 421 charts of patients who died in our ICU between October 2005 and October 2010 we identified 52 patients admitted to the ICU with advanced, incurable cancer. 14 patients were diagnosed with cancer one month or less prior to admission. 21 patients had ECOG performance status of 0-1. 14 patients had life expectancy of more than 6 months and 8 patients were admitted for post procedure complication. 47% of patients who did not satisfy any of our reasonable admission criteria had APDs.

Incorporating proposed admission criteria in ICU admission guidelines may prevent 37% of inappropriate, advanced cancer admissions to the ICU. A simple increase in numbers of APDs would not likely change significantly the numbers of inappropriate ICU admissions.