Specialist palliative and end-of-life care for patients with cancer and SARS-CoV-2 infection: a European perspective.

BACKGROUND

Specialist palliative care team (SPCT) involvement has been shown to improve symptom control and end-of-life care for patients with cancer, but little is known as to how these have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we report SPCT involvement during the first wave of the pandemic and compare outcomes for patients with cancer who received and did not receive SPCT input from multiple European cancer centres.

METHODS

From the OnCovid repository (

RESULTS

Of 555 eligible patients, 317 were male (57.1%), with a median age of 70 years (IQR 20). At COVID-19 diagnosis, 44.7% were on anti-cancer therapy and 53.3% had ⩾1 co-morbidity. Two hundred and six patients received SPCT input for symptom control (80.1%), psychological support (54.4%) and/or advance care planning (51%). SPCT+ patients had more 'Do not attempt cardio-pulmonary resuscitation' orders completed prior to (12.6%

CONCLUSION

SPCT referral facilitated symptom control, emergency care and discharge planning, as well as high rates of referral for psychological support than previously reported. Our study highlighted the critical need of SPCTs for patients with cancer during the pandemic and should inform service planning for this population.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s), 2021.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Conflict of interest statement: DJP received lecture fees from ViiV Healthcare and Bayer Healthcare and travel expenses from BMS and Bayer Healthcare; consulting fees for Mina Therapeutics, EISAI, Roche, and Astra Zeneca; received research funding (to institution) from MSD and BMS. AP has declared personal honoraria from Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, MSD Oncology, Eli Lilly, and Daiichi Sankyo; travel, accommodations, and expenses paid by Daiichi Sankyo; research funding from Roche and Novartis; and consulting/advisory role for NanoString Technologies, Amgen, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. TND has declared consulting/advisory role for Amgen, Bayer, AstraZeneca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, and Takeda; speaker fees from AstraZeneca, MSD, Roche, Takeda; and travel, accommodations and expenses paid by AstraZenca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, MSD, Otsuka, Roche, and Takeda. JB has declared consulting/advisory role for MSD and Astra Zeneca. PPS has declared consulting/advisory role for Sanofi and Abbvie. AP has declared consulting/advisory role for Takeda and Sanofi. MP has declared consulting/advisory role for Gilead and Bayer. AG has declared consulting/advisory role for Roche, MSD, Eli Lilly, Pierre Fabre, EISAI, and Daichii Sankyo; speaker’s bureau for Eisai, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Roche, Teva, Gentili, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Celgene, and Daichii Sankyo; research funds: EISAI, Eli Lilly, and Roche. LR reports receiving consulting fees from Amgen, ArQule, AstraZeneca, Basilea, Bayer, Celgene, Eisai, Exelixis, Hengrui, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, MSD, Nerviano Medical Sciences, Roche, and Sanofi; lecture fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Eisai, Gilead, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, Roche, and Sanofi; travel fees from Ipsen; and institutional research funding from Agios, ARMO BioSciences, AstraZeneca, BeiGene, Eisai, Exelixis, Fibrogen, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, MSD, and Roche. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed by other authors.