Chemotherapy use during the last 30 days of life in patients with cancer.

231 Background: Treatment options are increasingly available to patients with advanced cancer. Appropriately timed cession of chemotherapy is a quality-of-care measure in the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. To gain insight into whether communication about end-of-life (EOL) issues might need to be improved, we analyzed chemotherapy use during the 30 days at the EOL (EOLCx) among patients at large cancer center. We also analyzed the presence of electronic DNR (eDNR) orders at the time of death in hospital as a surrogate indicator of EOL discussions. Methods: We reviewed the records of cancer patients (age≥18 years) who received their care at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and died between December 2010 and May 2012. Logistic regression was used to measure associations of EOLCx and age, gender, ethnicity, comorbidities, cancer type, and cancer progression. Results: A total of 7,399 patients met the inclusion criteria. The median age was 64...