Use of targeted therapy in cancer patients in the end-of-life period.

129 Background: There is limited data on the use of these targeted therapies in patients at the end of life. This study reviews the pattern of use of targeted and potentially futile, toxic and costly therapies at the end of life at an Australian cancer centre. Methods: A retrospective single-centre review covering 12 month period of patients who died < 3 months of starting a targeted agent. We extracted demographics, types of cancers, types of therapy, median age and lines of prior therapy. Results: 478 patients were on targeted therapies during this period. 54 patients, (11.3%) died < 3 months. Of those, the median age was 69 years, men 65%, women 35%. 27 had haematological malignancies (mostly lymphoma and multiple myeloma), 21 had solid tumours (mostly colon and lung cancer). Ten agents were represented with erlotinib, bevacizumab, and rituximab having higher total number of deaths and none on transtuzumab. Treatment lines were first in 64.8%, second in 20.4% and 14.8% had > 2 lines of treatment. Performance status was only documented in 9.3% at start and 11.1% at end of treatment. Symptoms at the start of treatment that can be used to track improvement were only documented in 25 patients (46.3%). Gender, type of cancer, age was found to have no influence on death < 3 months of targeted treatment. Unfortunately we were unable to extract QoL data. Conclusions: In this small single centre descriptive study, the use of targeted therapy in the end of life population was common, mostly in first line treatment. No factors have shown correlation with dying < 3 months of targeted therapies. There is a need to better document performance status and QoL data and also to analyse indicators of when it is appropriate to cease targeted therapies.