Survival after Anticancer Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients with Ovarian Carcinoma

It remains unclear whether the end-of-life (EOL) treatment/environment impacts on survival after anticancer treatment in terminally ill women with ovarian carcinoma (OC). The aim of this investigation was to clarify how long those women actually survived after their last anticancer treatments and their hallmarks. Between 2003 and 2011, 79 terminally ill women with OC were retrospectively analyzed as a single institutional study. Postcancer treatment survival (PCS), defined as the duration between the last date of the abovementioned "cancer treatment" and that of death from any cause, was analyzed on stratification by type of supportive care or where patients spend their EOL. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW)-adjusted Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were employed to compare PCS between the two groups. The median PCS of patients was 10.8 weeks. In the multivariable analysis, the performance status and EOL place retained their significance as independent prognostic factors of poorer PCS (performance status [2-3/0-1]: hazard ratio [HR] = 3.279 [95% confidence interval; CI 1.967-5.586; p < 0.0001], EOL place [hospital/home hospice]: HR = 0.574 [95% CI 0.355-0.913; p = 0.0188]). In the IPTW-adjusted cohort, the median PCS rates were 15.0 and 9.7 weeks in patients of home/hospice and hospital groups, respectively (p = 0.04). Also in the IPTW cohort, the EOL place retained its significance (IPTW-adjusted: HR [95% CI]: 1.548 [1.009-2.374], p = 0.045, multivariable adjusted with IPTW: HR [95% CI]: 1.670 [1.077-2.588], p = 0.022). Our current data may be hypothesis generating; it is possible that the EOL environment is a crucial prognostic factor for survival after anticancer treatment.