2064P - Hospitalisation of patients with cancer: Identifying points for improvement in patient care in a university hospital in Spain

Background

Hospitalisation is an inevitable step in the evolution of many patients with cancer, principally in advanced tumors. This study aims to describe the admissions to a medical oncology inpatient service of our University Hospital between November 2022 and April 2023.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of patients admitted to the Medical Oncology Service of Infanta Sofía University Hospital (Madrid) along six months. Database was collected from the electronic health records. The following variables were analyzed: age, sex, type of tumor, stages, origin of the admission, period of hospital stay, diagnoses, assessment by another specialities, type of discharge and readmissions.

Results

In the chosen period, 310 hospitalisations related to 223 patients were studied, because some of them were readmitted in these six months. The average age was 71.49 years, 42.9% women and 57.1% men. The average hospital stay was 10.18 days. Near 77% of the patients had advanced disease. In order of frequency, patients with lung (28.06%), colorectal (15.8%) and genitourinary (11.94%) cancer represented the most of inpatients. Mainly the patients were admitted from the Emergency Department of our Hospital (56.45%). The most prevalent reason for hospitalisation was secondary symptoms of disease progression. Infections were the cause of admission in 24.52% of the cases and 27.42% of them were from respiratory system. Other causes to take into account were the toxicity to the treatment (5.8%). As part of the multidisciplinary approach, during their hospitalisation, 5.26% inpatients required surgical assessment. Interventional radiologists treated 1.29% patients and endocrinologists providing nutritional support in 10.65% of cases. Furthermore, less than 2% of our patients were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Palliative Care Unit assessed 37.74% of the inpatients, which 19.35% were being previously followed-up by them. Unfortunately 15.8% of the admitted patients died. We also observed 26.45% had to be admitted again.

Conclusions

It is important to identify the reasons why patients with cancer are admitted to the Hospital because it could help to identify areas for improvement in the quality of care.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.