ArticlePloS one2025
Specialty palliative care use among cancer patients: A population-based study.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Impact of Specialist Palliative Care on the Utilization of Health Care Services at the End of Life Among Patients With Prostate Cancer: A Nationwide Register-based Study.European urology open science · 2026Article
- Access to specialist palliative care and health care service utilization during the final year of life among patients with kidney disease.Clinical kidney journal · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRigorous population-based assessments of the use of specialty palliative care (SPC) in the US are rare. SETTINGS/SUBJECTS: This study examined SPC use among cancer patients in a mid-sized metropolitan area in Southeast US. MEASUREMENTS: In this cancer decedent cohort study, data were acquired and linked from the state-wide cancer registry; state-wide hospital discharge dataset; and local SPC providers.
results12,030 individuals with cancer were included in this study; only 2,958 (24.6%) used SPC. Of the 9,072 persons who did not use SPC, 3,877 (42.7%) went only to hospitals that did not offer SPC; and 3,517 (38.8%) went to hospitals that offered SPC but did not use it. About half of SPC recipients (1493; 50.5%) first received SPC in the final 30 days of life, including 768 (26.0%) in the final week of life. Characteristics associated with using SPC use included being in an socio-economic status quintile other than the lowest; being younger; being Black; having a solid (versus hematological) cancer; having a shorter survival with cancer; dying in the latter two years of the study; being from an area of low or complete rurality; having a hospital admission in the final 60 days prior to initiation of PC or death; having more days in hospital; and living within 15 miles of a hospital offering SPC.
conclusionsIn this population-based study, only one-quarter of cancer patients used SPC, and for half who did so, it came in the final 30 days of life.
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