Clinical characteristics and health care of end-stage cancer patients up to the time of death.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Cancer represents the fifth leading cause of death worldwide, and a major health problem.
In the final stage of life, patients receive palliative care, both at home and hospitalized.
While most of them prefer to die in their homes, a significant proportion do so admitted to health institutions.
OBJECTIVES: Primary: To quantify the days of hospitalization of cancer patients receiving palliative care
until death.
Secondary: To determine the frequency of symptoms for which these patients are hospitalized.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a retrospective, descriptive and observational study. The clinical histories of the terminal cancer patients who died during hospitalization were analyzed, from February 2017 to June 2018, at the Reina Fabiola University Clinic. The variables analyzed were: age, sex, days of hospitalization, reason for hospitalization, type of tumor, symptoms, palliative medication received and invasive therapeutic methods. The data are presented with descriptive statistics: N (%) for categorical variables and measures of position and dispersion. For continuous variables.
RESULTS: The final sample consisted of a total of 63 terminal cancer patients. The majority of patients were 57% female witjh an average (standard deviation SD) of 62 years old. The most frequent types of tumors were breast (26.2%), lung (21.3%) and, colorectal cancer (11.5%). The frequency of the symptoms was as follows: dyspnea (27%), pain (21%) and dehydration (19%). The days of average (SD) stay were 9.5 (8.7) days. Forty one percent of the patients were up to 5 days hospitalized before dying, and 33.3% between 6 and 10 days hospitalized, the rest of the patients were ≥11 days. Sixty eight percent of the patients used at least three o more medications.
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that terminal cancer patients remain hospitalized for an average of 9.5
days, this time being longer compared to the most developed countries. The possibility will be open to future research that can be analyzed on the non-biological aspects of the end of life and see what leads to hospitalization rather than hospitalization in your home.