Equal receipt of specialized palliative care in breast and prostate cancer: a register study

Abstract

Purpose: There are inequalities in cancer treatment. This study aimed to investigate whether receipt of specialized palliative care (SPC) is affected by typical female and male diagnoses (breast and prostate cancer), age, socioeconomic status (SES), comorbidities as measured by the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), or living arrangements (home vs nursing home residence). Furthermore, we wanted to investigate if receipt of SPC affects the place of death, or correlated with emergency department visits, or hospital admissions. Methods: All breast and prostate cancer patients who died with verified distant metastases during 2015–2019 in the Stockholm Region were included (n = 2516). We used univariable and stepwise (forward) logistic multiple regression models. Results: Lower age, lower CCI score, and higher SES significantly predicted receipt of palliative care 3 months before death (p =.007–p