Background: Early integration of Palliative Care (PC) have shown to improve survival in some solid malignancies such as lung and colon cancers. In this study we sought to analyze the PC utilization in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients.

Methods: Using the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) Participant User File, we extracted patient-level data of patients with AML reported between 2004 to 2015.Patients who received pain management and/or other palliative procedures were considered as PC utilizers. After excluding the cases with acute promyelocytic leukemia t (15, 17) (given its excellent prognosis), we classified the AML into three groups- AML with genetic abnormalities, therapy related AML and AML with dysplasia. Other co-variates included in the analysis were age, sex, race, origin, Charlson-Deyo comorbidity score, insurance status, household income, educational status, facility type (academic vs non-academic) and year of diagnosis. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify the predictors of palliative care utilization. Statistical analysis was done using PC SPSS v24.0.

Results: Of 102,778 patients, 3.4% (n=3504) received PC as initial treatment. PC utilization increased significantly from 2004-2006 to 2013-2015 (2.5% vs 3.9%, p < 0.001). Individuals of non-Hispanic origin (as compared to that of Hispanics) are more likely to receive PC as compared to that of non-Hispanics. (3.5 vs 1.8%, p<0.001). The patterns of PC utilization at non-academic centers were much higher than that of academic centers (4.4% vs 2.9%, p<0.001). As compared to that of AML, not otherwise specified subtype (3.3%), therapy-related AML (4%) and AML with dysplasia (4.3%) had higher rates of PC utilization, whereas individuals with AML with genetic abnormalities have lesser rates of PC utilization (1.9%) (p<0.001, all comparisons). Significant predictors of PC on multivariable regression are listed in the Table and forest plot.

Conclusions: We noticed a differential utilization of palliative care based on the histological subtype of AML. The lesser utilization of PC in AML with certain genetic abnormalities may be attributed to their better overall survival outcomes. Though we noticed an increased trend in PC utilization over the past decade, the overall PC utilization in AML is markedly low and plagued by origin and socio-economic status.

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Disclosures

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Topics:
leukemia, myelocytic, acute, palliative care, cancer, dysplasia, acute promyelocytic leukemia, colon cancer, pain management, logistic regression, multivariate analysis, databases

Author notes

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Asterisk with author names denotes non-ASH members.

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© 2018 by The American Society of Hematology
2018
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