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Abstract Introduction Patients with upper gastrointestinal (UGI) cancers are usually diagnosed with an advanced tumour stage. This contributes to limited opportunities for curative therapy and dismal overall 5-year survival rates. Between 50-80% of all patients are not eligible for surgery, thus requiring palliative oncological care (PC) or best supportive care (BSC). Since most patients with UGI cancer can be found in this group, it is important to investigate the symptom burden in those receiving BSC in order to optimize care. Method Patients with UGI cancer who were recommended BSC without prior curative or palliative treatment at a multidisciplinary team (MDT) at Sahlgrenska University Hospital between 2018 – 2021, were included in this retrospective study. Baseline demographic, blood tests, symptoms, need for in-hospital care and interventional procedures were collected for all patients. Result Three hundred and fifty-five patients with UGI-cancer were included in the study. Mean age was 79 years and 52% were male. Symptom burden and interventions are presented in Table 1. The median survival time from MDT were 69 days. Eighty-five percent of the patients required hospitalization after MDT of which 29% were hospitalized twice or more. Mean total length of stay was 14 days. Twenty-eight percent of the patients died in hospital. Discussion Patients with UGI cancers receiving BSC present a high morbidity and need for in-hospital care. While further subgroup analysis will be conducted, this preliminary data supports the need for structuralized care as many of the symptoms may be treatable and could strongly impact the quality of life.
Wilder et al. (Thu,) studied this question.