A Prescription for Fewer ER Visits - Cancer Today

Forward Look

By Cameron Walker

Cancer patients often find themselves in the emergency room (ER) when symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea and pain become severe. Yet, a recent study found that many of these visits might have been avoided if patients had been treated sooner for their symptoms.

Laura Panattoni, a health economist at the Hutchinson Center for Cancer Outcomes Research in Seattle, and her colleagues looked at ER visits for more than 5,800 cancer patients with solid tumors who lived in western Washington state and had been treated with radiation, chemotherapy or both between 2011 and 2015. During that time, 27 percent of the patients went to the ER at least once.

The researchers compared the symptoms the patients reported to a list of potentially preventable chemotherapy-related side effects developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They found that 53 percent of the ER visits by patients with cancer-related symptoms could have been prevented with earlier treatment. Avoiding the ER would have also reduced costs for treating the symptoms.

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