Influence of malignancy on the decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining therapy in critically ill patients.

Publication/Presentation Date

12-1-2009

Abstract

PURPOSE: To evaluate the influence of malignancy on the decision to limit life-sustaining therapy in the intensive care unit (ICU).

METHODS: At the day of patients' admission to the ICU, we prospectively collected information on demographics, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) II score, and features related to malignancy. We retrospectively collected information on in-hospital survival and decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment.

RESULTS: This study included 122 adult critically ill patients. After adjusting for age and APACHE II score, patients with malignancy had 3.02 (95% CI 1.19 to 7.62) higher odds of having life-sustaining therapy withdrawn or withheld as compared to patients without active malignancy.

CONCLUSION: Our study showed that critically ill patients with malignancy are more likely to have their life-sustaining therapy withheld or withdrawn than those without malignancy after adjusting for severity of disease. This finding may be related to a perception that critically ill patients with malignancy have worse prognosis as compared with those without malignancy.

Volume

26

Issue

6

First Page

464

Last Page

469

ISSN

1938-2715

Disciplines

Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Health and Medical Administration | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods

PubMedID

19648574

Department(s)

Administration and Leadership

Document Type

Article

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