Integration of Specialized Palliative Care with Oncological Treatment in Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

The incidence of pancreatic cancer is around 5 in 100,000, and the 5-year survival is poor. Pancreatic cancer patients have a high disease-specific burden of symptoms, and palliative chemotherapy has varying side effects. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) suggests integrating specialized palliative care (SPC) with standard oncological treatment for pancreatic cancer patients at stage ≥III. This study investigated the effects of enrollment into SPC >30 days before death.

This retrospective study included 170 patients with histopathologically verified pancreatic adenocarcinoma who received palliative chemotherapy at Skåne University Hospital and died between February 1, 2015, and December 31, 2017.

Of the 170 patients, 151 were enrolled within the SPC unit; 97 of them for >30 days before death (group A). The remainder (group B) received SPC for ≤30 days before death (n = 54) or not at all (n = 19). Patients in groups A and B lived a median of 73 and 44 days, respectively, after the last palliative chemotherapy treatment (p < 0.001), but did not differ in terms of median overall survival (11.2 months vs. 10.9 months). Death in the hospital occurred in 84% of patients never admitted to SPC and 2% of patients ever admitted to SPC.

Enrollment in SPC for longer than 30 days may lower the risk of receiving futile palliative chemotherapy at the end of life, compared with patients enrolled in SPC for 30 days or less before death. Enrollment in SPC lowers the risk of dying in a hospital.