High Burden of Readmissions After Major Surgery Leads to Poorer Outcomes, Higher Costs

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

The high burden of readmissions after major cancer surgery leads to poorer patient outcomes and higher costs, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Karyn B. Stitzenberg, MD, and fellow researchers at the University of North Carolina examined SEER-Medicare patient data from 2001 to 2007 of patients with cancer of the bladder, pancreas, or esophagus in. They calculated readmission rates using Kaplan-Meier functions. Only patients who underwent extirpative surgery were included.

Based on tumor type, readmission ranged from 13 to 29 percent for 30-day rates and 23 to 43 percent for 90-day rates. The researchers found that long-term survival as well as costs of care were worse among patients who were readmitted.

Predictors of readmission included discharge to somewhere other than home, longer length of stay, comorbidities , and higher stage of diagnosis. Longer travel distance to hospital was also a factor, with those patients more likely to be readmitted to a hospital other than the index hospital.

“Interventions targeted at higher risk individuals could potentially decrease the population burden of readmissions after major cancer surgery,” the authors concluded.