Palliative Care in Urology

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Urological Care

Patients receiving palliative care (PC) can present with or develop a host of urological needs or complications. These needs can include attention to sexual health, urinary incontinence, genitourinary bleeding, and urinary tract obstruction by benign, malignant, or urinary stone diseases. These varied conditions require that PC clinicians understand invasive and noninvasive medical, surgical, and radiation options for treatment. This article, written by a team of urologists, geriatricians, and PC specialists, offers information and guidance to PC teams in an accessible "Top Ten Tips" format to increase comfort with and skills around assessment, evaluation, and specialist referral for urological conditions common in the PC setting.

A Lack of Palliative Therapy Use in Patients With Advanced Penile Cancer

OBJECTIVES

Advanced penile cancer is associated with a poor prognosis; therefore, providing patients with realistic expectations, addressing goals of care and offering palliative therapy when appropriate is critical. Our goal was to investigate the National Cancer Database (NCDB) and analyze the role and trends in use of palliative therapy in patients with advanced penile cancer.

METHODS

The NCDB 2004-2015 penile cancer data set was queried for patients with locally advanced, defined as cT4NanyM0 and cTanyN3M0, or metastatic disease regardless of tumor or nodal stage. Patients were categorized based on whether they did or did not receive palliative care. Palliative care was cataloged as pain management therapy, surgery, radiation or systemic treatment, any combination therapy or not otherwise specified (NOS). Our primary outcome was receiving palliative therapy. Secondary outcome was the temporal trends in palliative care. Logistic regression (LR) was performed.

RESULTS OBTAINED

385 and 279 patients were identified with locally advanced and metastatic penile cancer respectively. 27 (7.1%) and 49 (17.6%) patients received palliative care. Average age of patients accepting palliative care was 61.9 years old, about 5 years younger than their counterparts who declined therapy (p < 0.011) in the metastatic cohort. Other patient specific demographics and clinical tumor characteristics were not significantly different in either population. Of patients with locally advanced disease pursuing palliative therapy, radiation (29.6%), surgery (14.8%), systemic treatment (14.8%) and combination treatment (22.2%) were the more popular choices. In the metastatic population, radiation (32.7%) and systemic therapy (24.5%) were the most prevalent choices for palliative treatment followed by combination treatment (16.3%), surgery (12.2%), pain management (10.2%), or NOS (4.1%). LR for the receipt of "any palliative therapy" revealed that increasing age (OR 0.971, p = 0.032) decreased the likelihood of accepting palliative therapy in the metastatic population but not in the locally advanced group. Charlson score of 2 (OR 5.966, p = 0.025) and low income (OR 3.968, p = 0.002) predicted receipt of palliative therapy in the locally advanced group. In patients with metastatic disease, African-American race (OR 2.502, p = 0.025), Charlson score 1 (2.175, p = 0.047) and 3+ (5.386, p = 0.020) predicted an increased predilection for receiving palliative therapy. Interestingly, no statistically significant difference in mortality was noted in either cohort. No significant increase in the trend of palliative care administration was seen in locally advanced and metastatic penile cancer between 2004 to 2015 (p = 0.078 and p = 0.942, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Locally advanced and metastatic penile cancer carry a high mortality rate yet only 11.4% of all patients studied received palliative care. Its use is more common in younger patients, those with co-morbidities and/or those of black race in the metastatic group. Locally advanced patients with low income or comorbidities were also more likely to opt for palliative therapy. Receipt of palliative care did not affect mortality. No increase in frequency of palliative therapy was seen, suggesting much improvement needs to be done in adopting and implementing palliative care in this patient population.

Trends in palliative care interventions among patients with advanced bladder, prostate, or kidney cancer: A retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

Palliative care has an established role in improving the quality of life in patients with advanced cancer, but little is known regarding its delivery among patients with urologic malignancies.

OBJECTIVE

To determine trends in the utilization of palliative interventions among patients with advanced bladder, prostate, and kidney cancer.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients from years 2004 to 2013 in the National Cancer Database diagnosed with stage IV bladder (n = 17,997), prostate (n = 23,322), and kidney (n = 34,697) cancer, after excluding those with missing disease stage, treatment, and outcomes data.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were performed to evaluate utilization of palliative care intervention. Utilization was analyzed by cancer type and by overall survival strata (<6, 6-24, and >24 months). Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards models analyzed overall survival.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

Palliative interventions were utilized in 12.5% (2,257/17,997), 14.7% (3,442/23,322), and 19.9% (6,935/34,697) of advanced bladder, prostate, and kidney cancer patients, respectively. Older age and longer survival were associated with lower odds of palliative intervention utilization in each malignancy, as was minority race in kidney and bladder cancer patients. Palliative radiation was used most commonly, and utilization of any palliative intervention was associated with poorer overall survival. Limitations largely stem from imperfect data abstraction, and the analysis of interventions' incomplete reflection of palliative care.

CONCLUSIONS

Palliative interventions were seldom used among patients with advanced urologic malignancies. Palliative interventions were less frequently used in older patients and minority races. Further study is warranted to define the role of palliative interventions in advanced urologic malignancies and guide their utilization.