Palliative Chemotherapy Near the End of Life in Oncology Patients

Background:Although palliative chemotherapy during end-of-life (EOL) care is used to relieve symptoms in patients with metastatic cancer, chemotherapy may lead to more aggressive EOL care. We evaluated the use of and variables associated with chemotherapy at EOL.Methods:This study included data from patients who died from advanced cancer and underwent palliative chemotherapy between April 2007 and May 2017 at the Department of Palliative Care of Fudan University, Shanghai Cancer Center. Data were collected from hospital medical records. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to identify the variables that independently predicted the use of palliative chemotherapy.Results:Among the 542 patients in the study, 85 (15.7%) underwent palliative chemotherapy during the last month and 28 (5.2%) underwent it during the last 2 weeks of life. Age <59 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.82, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.51-2.61), performance status <3 (OR = 3.73, 95% CI: 1.46-4.67), and cardiopulmonary resuscit...