Impact of Urgent Chemotherapy in Critically Ill Patients

Abstract

Objective: Compare the mortality between critically ill patients who received urgent chemotherapy for a cancer-related life-threatening complication with matched patients (controls) who did not received it. Design: Propensity score-matched retrospective study. Setting: Adult intensive care unit in an oncological hospital. Participants: All adults with solid tumor or hematological malignancies who received at least 1 day of urgent intravenous chemotherapy for a cancer-related life-threatening complication. Using the propensity score method adjusted for 10 variables, patients who received urgent chemotherapy were matched to patients who did not. Interventions: None. Main Outcomes Measures: Intensive care unit and hospital mortality. Results: Forty-seven patients (57% with solid tumors and 43% with hematological malignancies) who received urgent chemotherapy were matched to 94 controls. At intensive care unit admission, patients were similar except that those who received urgent chemotherapy were less likely to have received chemotherapy previously (36% vs 85%; P