How I Treat: Why Patients with Hematological Malignancies should be admitted to an Intensive Care Unit

Amin T Turki* and Tobias Liebregts

Received: February 09, 2018;   Published: February 19, 2018

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.02.000774

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Abstract

Traditionally, cancer patients are considered poorly suitable for treatment in intensive care units (ICU)[1-7]. In numerous reported studies, ICU and hospital mortality rates were highly above average Tremblay, Hyland et al. [8]. For stem cell recipients, data from the 1990s showed mortality rates up to 90% Epner, White et al. [4]. Therefore, many clinicians remain skeptical regarding the admission of cancer patients to intensive care units. Because of their potentially curable disease and higher overall survival rates, admission barriers to patients with hematologic malignancies have been recently eased, but for stem cell recipients as well as for patients with metastatic cancer admissions remain highly restrictive. Over the last decade, cancer survivorship has been qualitatively and quantitatively improved. This can be explained through better therapies and improved management of supportive care. Patients with hematologic malignancies did in particular profit from enhanced infectious and sepsis management, but with rising age and multi-morbid patient collectives the absolute number of sepsis death cases doubled National Collaborating Centre for.

Keywords: Intensive care treatment; ICU; Hematologic malignancies

Abbreviations: ICU: Intensive Care Units; GVHD: Graft-Versus-Host Disease; ECOG: Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group; APACHE: Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation

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