Associations between palliative chemotherapy and adult cancer patients' end of life care and place of death: prospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To determine whether the receipt of chemotherapy among terminally ill cancer patients months before death was associated with patients' subsequent intensive medical care and place of death.

Design

Secondary analysis of a prospective, multi-institution, longitudinal study of patients with advanced cancer.

Setting

Eight outpatient oncology clinics in the United States.

Participants

386 adult patients with metastatic cancers refractory to at least one chemotherapy regimen, whom physicians identified as terminally ill at study enrollment and who subsequently died.

Main outcome measures

Primary outcomes

intensive medical care (cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, or both) in the last week of life and patients' place of dea

SUBMITTER: Wright AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3942564 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature