Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Patients with cancer can develop fluid around the lungs causing shortness of breath. It represents an advanced stage of cancer and treatment is focused on relieving the patient's symptoms. Two main definitive methods are suggested to help with this. The first method would be to insert a permanent drain into the chest so that fluid can be drained on a regular basis. The second method functions by instilling a chemical into the chest to glue the lung to the chest wall, not allowing the fluid to re-accumulate. Both methods are effective and recommended to treat the cancerous fluid. Despite the above, patients oftentimes undergo multiple other temporary and invasive procedures prior to getting one of these definitive treatments for the fluid. This can lead to additional hospital visits and admissions, a burden on patient's whose main focus is on quality of life. This project examined the number and type of procedures, hospital emergency room visits and hospital admissions to characterize the burden that these patients undergo. This has never been studied before in the literature. We performed the study by looking at old hospital records. Over a 2 year period, we found 72 cases that met our study criteria. The results found that half the patients, prior to getting a definitive procedure, would undergo extra procedures or hospital admissions. By improving practice patterns and providing adequate resources, the extra burden placed on these cancer patients could be reduced and quality of life improved.