Validity of the French version of the Autonomy Preference Index and its adaptation for patients with advanced cancer

International audienc

Timing of palliative care needs reporting and aggressiveness of care near the end of life in metastatic lung cancer: A national registry-based study

International audienc

First referral to an integrated onco- palliative care program: a retrospective analysis of its timing

International audienceBackground: Palliative care (PC) referral is recommended early in the course of advanced cancer. This study aims to describe, in an integrated onco-palliative care program (IOPC), patient's profile when first referred to this program, timing of this referral and its impact on the trajectory of care at end-of-life. Methods: The IOPC combined the weekly onco-palliative meeting (OPM) dedicated to patients with incurable cancer, and/or the clinical evaluation by the PC team. Oncologists can refer to the multidisciplinary board of the OPM the patients for whom goals and organization of care need to be discussed. We analyzed all patients first referred at OPM in 2011-2013. We defined the index of precocity (IP), as the ratio of the time from first referral to death by the time from diagnosis of incurability to death, ranging from 0 (late referral) to 1 (early referral). Results: Of the 416 patients included, 57% presented with lung, urothelial cancers, or sarcoma. At first referral to IOPC, 76% were receiving antitumoral treatment, 63% were outpatients, 56% had a performance status ≤2 and 46% had a serum albumin level > 35 g/l. The median [1st-3rd quartile] IP was 0.39 [0.16-0.72], ranging between 0.53 [0.20-0.79] (earliest referral, i.e. close to diagnosis of incurability, for lung cancer) to 0.16 [0.07-0.56] (latest referral, i.e. close to death relatively to length of metastatic disease, for prostate cancer). Among 367 decedents, 42 (13%) received antitumoral treatment within 14 days before death, and 157 (43%) died in PC units. Conclusions: The IOPC is an effective organization to enable early integration of PC and decrease aggressiveness of care near the end-of life. The IP is a useful tool to model the timing of referral to IOPC, while taking into account each cancer types and therapeutic advances

Integration and activity of hospital-based palliative care consultation teams: the INSIGHT multicentric cohort study

International audienceBackground: Hospital-based Palliative Care Consultation Teams (PCCTs) have a consulting role to specialist services at their request. Referral of patients is often late. Early palliative care in oncology has shown its effectiveness in improving quality of life, thereby questioning the “on request” model of PCCTs. Whether this evidence changed practice is unknown. This multicentre prospective cohort study aims to describe the activity and integration of PCCTs at the patient level. Methods: For consecutive patients newly referred to participating PCCTs, the team collected the following data: circumstances of first referral, problems identified, number of interventions, patient’s survival after first evaluation and place of death. Results: Seventeen PCCTs based in university hospitals in Paris area, recruited 744 newly referred adult patients, aged 72 ± 15 years, 52% males, and 504(68%) with cancer as primary diagnosis. After 6 months, 548(74%) had died. At first evaluation, 12% patients were outpatients, 88% were inpatients. Symptoms represented the main reasons for referral and problems identified; 79% of patients had altered performance status; 24% encountered the PCCT only once. Median survival (1st-3rd quartile) after first evaluation by the PCCT was 22 (5–82) days for overall patients, and respectively 31 (8–107) days and 9 (3–34) days for cancer versus noncancer patients (p < 0.0001). Place of death was acute care hospital for 51.7% patients, and home or Palliative Care Unit for 35%. Patients referred earlier died more often in PCU. Conclusion: The study provides original data showing a still late referral to the PCCTs in France. Cancer patients represent their predominant activity. The integrated palliative care model seems to emerge besides the “on request” model which originally characterised their missions

Effect of integrated palliative care on the quality of end-of-life care: retrospective analysis of 521 cancer patients

International audienceObjective To examine the impact of oncologist awareness of palliative care (PC), the intervention of the PC team (PCT) and multidisciplinary decision-making on three quality indicators of end-of-life (EOL) care. Setting Cochin Academic Hospital, Paris, 2007–2008. Design and participants A 521 decedent case series study nested in a cohort of 735 metastatic cancer patients previously treated with chemotherapy. Indicators were location of death, number of emergency room (ER) visits in last month of life and chemotherapy administration in last 14 days of life. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between indicators and oncologist's awareness of PC, PCT intervention and case discussions at weekly onco-palliative meetings (OPMs). Results 58 (11%) patients died at home, 45 (9%) in an intensive care unit or ER, and 253 (49%) in an acute care hospital; 185 (36%) patients visited the ER in last month of life and 75 (14%) received chemotherapy in last 14 days of life. Only the OPM (n=179, 34%) independently decreases the odds of receiving chemotherapy in last 14 days of life (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.2 to 0.9) and of dying in an acute care setting (0.3, 0.1 to 0.5). PCT intervention (n=300, 58%) did not independently improve any indicators. Among patients seen by the PCT, early PCT intervention had no impact on indicators, whereas the OPM reduced the odds of persistent chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life. Conclusion Multidisciplinary decision-making with oncologists and the PCT is the most critical parameter for improving EOL care

Multicentre analysis of intensity of care at the end-of-life in patients with advanced cancer, combining health administrative data with hospital records: variations in practice call for routine quality evaluation

Abstract Background Accessible indicators of aggressiveness of care at the end-of-life are useful to monitor implementation of early integrated palliative care practice. To determine the intensity of end-of-life care from exhaustive data combining administrative databases and hospital clinical records, to evaluate its variability across hospital facilities and associations with timely introduction of palliative care (PC). Methods For this study designed as a decedent series nested in multicentre cohort of advanced cancer patients, we selected 997 decedents from a cohort of patients hospitalised in 2009–2010, with a diagnosis of metastatic cancer in 3 academic medical centres and 2 comprehensive cancer centres in the Paris area. Hospital data was combined with nationwide mortality databases. Complete data were collected and checked from clinical records, including first referral to PC, chemotherapy within 14 days of death, ≥1 intensive care unit (ICU) admission, ≥2 emergency department visits (ED), and ≥ 2 hospitalizations, all within 30 days of death. Results Overall (min-max) indicator values as reported by facility providing care rather than the place of death, were: 16% (8–25%) patients received chemotherapy within 14 days of death, 16% (6–32%) had ≥2 admissions to acute care, 6% (0–15%) had ≥2 emergency visits and 18% (4–35%) had ≥1 intensive care unit admission(s). Only 53% of these patients met the PC team, and the median (min-max) time between the first intervention of the PC team and death was 41 (17–112) days. The introduction of PC > 30 days before death was independently associated with lower intensity of care. Conclusions Aggressiveness of end-of-life cancer care is highly variable across centres. This validates the use of indicators to monitor integrated PC in oncology. Disseminating a quality audit-feedback cycle should contribute to a shared view of appropriate end-of-life care objectives, and foster action for improvement among care providers

La réunion de concertation pluridisciplinaire onco-palliative : objectifs et préconisations pratiques

International audienceProgress leads to increase life duration at the metastatic stage but metastatic disease is most often lethal. Decision-making is necessary for an increasing period of care, beyond evidence-based medicine, dealing with complexity and uncertain benefit/risk ratio. This requires to inform the patient realistically, to discuss prognostication, to develop anticipated written preferences. These changes mean to pass from a medicine based on informed consent to medicine based on respect of the patient wishes even if it can be complex to determine. A new multidisciplinarity is needed, centered on the meaning of the care, the proportionality of the care, the anticipated patient trajectory. The ASCO has published recommendations on early palliative care. The timing and the quality of the discussion between palliative care specialists and oncologists is crucial. We propose 10 steps to organize a multidisciplinary onco-palliative meeting, as it appears the key for the organization of care in non-curable disease.Le progrès conduit à allonger la durée de vie de la maladie cancéreuse métastatique, qui demeure le plus souvent une maladie évolutive et mortelle. Les soins se réalisent pendant une durée croissante au-delà des preuves fournies par les études cliniques, donc dans la complexité et l’incertitude sur les rapports bénéfice/risque. Respecter le cadre éthique, renforcé par la loi Claeys-Leonetti de février 2016, pour une maladie évolutive potentiellement mortelle, conduit à informer le patient de manière réaliste, évoquer le pronostic, développer les discussions anticipées, recueillir et respecter ses préférences. Ces évolutions conduisent à passer d’une médecine du consentement éclairé à une médecine du respect de la volonté, avec toute la complexité que suppose la détermination de cette dernière. Tandis que s’est structurée la pluridisciplinarité au diagnostic par l’association des expertises diagnostiques et thérapeutiques vis-à-vis de la maladie tumorale, émerge ainsi un besoin de structuration d’une autre pluridisciplinarité, interrogeant le sens pour la personne, la proportionnalité du soin, la trajectoire personnelle et la sécurisation du parcours de soins. Pour atteindre cet objectif, la précocité de l’alliance des expertises complémentaires est décisive. Ceci a conduit à des recommandations de la Société américaine d’oncologie clinique (ASCO). L’introduction de l’équipe de soins palliatifs est un temps essentiel et la qualité de la concertation onco-palliative est déterminante. Nous décrivons notre préconisation pour mettre en pratique une réunion de concertation (RCP) onco-palliative, véritable pivot d’un changement d’organisation du soin en situation d’incurabilité