The Impact of Palliative Care Consultation on Re-Hospitalization in Patients with Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background: Prior research has demonstrated the impact of palliative care (PC) consultation in lessening re-hospitalization rates for patients with advanced lung cancer. Nevertheless, the effect of PC consultation on patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains insufficiently explored within the Asian population. Objective: To compare the re-hospitalization rates between patients with metastatic NSCLC who received PC consultation and those who did not. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort was conducted in patients who were diagnosed with metastatic NSCLC at Lampang Hospital between 2019 and 2022. Duration of the follow-up was estimated from the inception of diagnosing metastatic lung cancer appeared in the medical records until either the last hospital visits or the death date. All patients’ medical records were followed-up until June 2023. PC consultation was indicated when a PC consultation was documented in the hospital’s medical record. The patients’ all-cause re-hospitalization was defined as the hospital admission events of the inclusive samples, regardless of the causes of admission. The unplanned re-hospitalization visit was defined as patients’ hospital admission unappointed for any purposes of treatment or follow-up by the hospital. Multiple Poisson regression analyses were employed to examine the associations. Results: Two hundred twenty-three metastatic NSCLC patients were included in the present study with 28.7% who received PC consultation. Patients receiving PC consultation were associated with lower chances of all-cause re-admission at 1-year (aIRR 0.767, p=0.027) and 2-year follow-up (aIRR 0.783, p=0.036). PC consultation was also associated with a lower rate of unplanned re-admission at 1-year (aIRR 0.751, p=0.029) and 2-year durations (aIRR 0.766, p=0.037). Conclusion: Findings of the present study advocate for the implementation of PC consultation in metastatic NSCLC patients as it could reduce re-hospitalization.