• Marco Maltoni, Emanuela Scarpi, Monia Dall'Agata, Stefania Schiavon, Claudia Biasini, Carla Codecà, Chiara Maria Broglia, Elisabetta Sansoni, Roberto Bortolussi, Ferdinando Garetto, Luisa Fioretto, Maria Teresa Cattaneo, Alice Giacobino, Massimo Luzzani, Giovanna Luchena, Sara Alquati, Silvia Quadrini, Vittorina Zagonel, Luigi Cavanna, Daris Ferrari, Paolo Pedrazzoli, Giovanni Luca Frassineti, Antonella Galiano, Andrea Casadei Gardini, Manlio Monti, Oriana Nanni, and Early Palliative Care Italian Study Group (EPCISG).
• Palliative Care Unit, Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST) IRCCS, Meldola, FC, Italy.
• Eur. J. Cancer. 2016 Dec 1; 69: 110-118.

AimEarly palliative care (EPC) in oncology has shown sparse evidence of a positive impact on patient outcomes, quality of care outcomes and costs.Patients And MethodsData for this secondary analysis were taken from a trial of 207 outpatients with metastatic pancreatic cancer randomly assigned to receive standard cancer care plus on-demand EPC (standard arm) or standard cancer care plus systematic EPC (interventional arm). After 20 months' follow-up, 149 (80%) had died. Outcome measures were frequency, type and timing of chemotherapy administration, use of resources, place of death and overall survival.ResultsSome indices of end-of-life (EoL) aggressiveness had a favourable impact from systematic EPC. Interventional arm patients showed higher use of hospice services: a significantly longer median and mean period of hospice care (P = 0.025 for both indexes) and a significantly higher median and mean number of hospice admissions (both P < 0.010). In the experimental arm, chemotherapy was performed in the last 30 days of life in a significantly inferior rate with respect to control arm: 18.7% versus 27.8% (adjusted P = 0.036). Other non-significant differences were seen in favour of experimental arm.ConclusionsSystematic EPC showed a significant impact on some indicators of EoL treatment aggressiveness. These data, reinforced by multiple non-significant differences in most of the other items, suggest that quality of care is improved by this approach. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01996540).Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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