PLoS ONE (Jan 2023)

Comparison of survival times of advanced cancer patients with palliative care at home and in hospital.

  • Jun Hamano,
  • Ayano Takeuchi,
  • Masanori Mori,
  • Yasuhiro Saitou,
  • Takahide Yamaguchi,
  • Nobuyuki Miyata,
  • Masakatsu Shimizu,
  • Ryo Yamamoto,
  • Yousuke Kimura,
  • Yoshiyuki Kamiyama,
  • Yasuyuki Arai,
  • Hiroshi Matsuo,
  • Hideki Shishido,
  • Kazushi Nakano,
  • Tomohiro Nishi,
  • Hiroka Nagaoka,
  • Naosuke Yokomichi,
  • Isseki Maeda,
  • Takashi Yamaguchi,
  • Tatsuya Morita,
  • Takuya Shinjo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284147
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 18, no. 4
p. e0284147

Abstract

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ObjectivesOne primary concern about receiving care at home is that survival might be shortened because the quality and quantity of treatment provided at home will be inferior to that given in the hospital. Although our previous study demonstrated a longer survival of those with home-based palliative care (PC), it lacked adjustment for some potential confounders including symptoms and treatments during the stay. We aimed to compare the survival times among advanced cancer patients receiving home-based and hospital-based PC with adjusting for symptoms and treatments.MethodWe compared survival time of participants who enrolled two multicenter, prospective cohort studies of advanced cancer patients at 45-home-based PC services between July 2017 and December 2017, and at 23-hospital-based PC services between January 2017 and December 2017. We analyzed with stratification by the estimated survival of Days, Weeks, and Months, which were defined by modified Prognosis in Palliative care Study predictor models-A. We conducted a Cox regression analysis with adjusting for potential confounders including symptoms and treatments during the stay.ResultsA total of 2,998 patients were enrolled in both studies and 2,878 patients were analyzed; 988 patients receiving home-based PC and 1,890 receiving hospital-based PC. The survival time of patients receiving home-based PC was significantly longer than that of patients receiving hospital-based PC for the Days Prognosis (estimated median survival time: 10 days [95% CI 8.1-11.8] vs. 9 days [95% CI 8.3-10.4], p = 0.157), the Weeks prognosis (32 days [95% CI 28.9-35.4] vs. 22 days [95% CI 20.3-22.9], p ConclusionIn this cohort of advanced cancer patients with a Weeks or Months prognosis, those receiving home-based PC survived longer than those receiving hospital-based PC after adjusting for symptoms and treatments.