Early Palliative Care Improves Overall Survival in Patients With Lymphoma: A Single-institution Retrospective Study

Early palliative care (EPC) intervention in patients with solid tumors can provide many benefits. However, studies on patients with hematological malignancies are limited, and there is no data on patients with lymphoma. We conducted a preliminary retrospective survey of palliative care (PC) intervention in patients with lymphoma to clarify the effect of EPC on overall survival (OS).

The first palliative care consultation (PC1) was retrospectively reviewed from medical records in Japan. Patients with lymphoma requiring inpatient PC at our institution from January 2012 to December 2018 were recruited. We conducted receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis; patients were divided into two groups (early and delayed), and the survival periods and palliative care team (PCT) referral details were compared.

The analysis included 77 patients with lymphoma [median age, 71 (64-79)] years. The median period to PC1 from the initial diagnosis was 395 (180-1,086) days. ROC analysis revealed an optimal PC intervention timing of 140 days. OS was significantly longer in the early group than that in the delayed group. The most common counseling details for the PCT were symptom relief and palliative care transfer (36.8% and 35.2%, respectively).

This real-world evaluation of PC intervention for inpatients with lymphoma revealed that PC intervention was provided at approximately 13 months following initial diagnosis. EPC intervention from diagnosis to 140 days may improve OS in patients with lymphoma; however further large-scale studies are required to verify this finding.