Abstract
Introduction: The diagnostic evaluation of patients presenting with possible lung cancer is often complex and time consuming. In 2014, a rapid outpatient diagnostic program was created in our department avoiding the hospital admission of these patients if they had a preserved general state.
Objective: To compare the hospital stays and time to diagnosis of lung cancer before and after implementing this rapid outpatient diagnostic program.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted of all patients with suspected lung cancer referred to our Pneumology Department in 2013 and 2015. We recorded the age, sex, days of hospital stay, need for hospitalization during the outpatient study and time to diagnosis.
Results: In 2013, 123 patients (96 men), mean age 68.3 years, were admitted in hospital for suspected lung cancer with an average stay of 8.11 days. Mean time to diagnosis was 13.5 days (range 5-27 days). The cost for patient for the Related Group for Diagnosis (DRG) respiratory neoplasms was 2997 euros (weight 1.81). In 2015, 71 patients (58 men), mean age 69.3 years, were diagnosed on an outpatient basis, mean time to diagnosis was 10.4 days (range 5-28 days); 47 patients (36 men), mean age 67.4 years, were admitted in hospital with a mean time to diagnosis of 13.5 days (5-27 days). In the first group of patients, 6 required hospitalization before completing the study (3 due to clinical deterioration, 1 due to uncontrolled pain, 1 due to convulsion and 1 due to fever).
Conclusions: This program allows to study on an outpatient basis a large percentage of patients with suspected lung cancer (60.19%), which leads to a reduction in health expenses, without increasing the time to diagnosis.
- Copyright ©the authors 2017