title: Why do cancer patients die in the emergency department?: an analysis of 283 deaths in NC EDs.
abstract: Emergency department (ED) visits are made by cancer patients for symptom management, treatment effects, oncologic emergencies, or end of life care. While most patients prefer to die at home, many die in health care institutions. The purpose of this study is to describe visit characteristics of cancer patients who died in the ED and their most common chief complaints using 2008 ED visit data from the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool (NC DETECT). Of the 37,760 cancer-related ED visits, 283 resulted in death. For lung cancer patients, 104 died in the ED with 70.9% dying on their first ED visit. Research on factors precipitating ED visits by cancer patients is needed to address end of life care needs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. anleak@email.unc.edu
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leak
authors.forename: Deborah K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.forename: Annah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wyss
authors.forename: Debbie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Travers
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Waller
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D009657:North Carolina / Q000453:epidemiology