Abstract
Introduction: we previously showed (Lung Cancer 80: 203; 2013) that emergency visit is a frequent event for lung cancer patients and we identified simple factors predicting hospitalisation and death. In the present report, we studied the same question in a general cancer population, taking into account the type of cancer.
Methods: we retrospectively reviewed the charts of all cancer patients consulting at our emergency department from 01/2008 to 12/2010. Data included 4777 emergency consultations from 2426 cancer patients resulting in 2753 hospitalisations. Main underlying tumours (per visit) were breast (33 %), haematological (16 %), gastro-intestinal (16 %) and lung (12 %) cancers. Data were randomly divided into a derivation set (70%) to develop predictive scores for hospitalisation and death in case of admission and a validation set (30%).
Results: significant independent predictive factors for admission were type and time of arrival, breast cancer, type of complaints, disease stage, number of comorbidities, abnormal vital signs, and physical signs associated with the chief complaint. For death after admission, they were arrival type, stage, poor general status, physical signs associated with the chief complaint, corticoids, abnormal vital signs and lung cancer. Other types of cancer did not appear significant at multivariate analysis. The risk to die during hospitalisation for lung cancer patients was 2.8 (95 % IC 1.57-4.98; p<0.001). Both derived predictive scores were validated.
Conclusion: if it is not a predictive factor for admission after a visit to the emergency department, lung cancer is a significant independent predictive factor for death in case of hospitalisation.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016