Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Use at the End of Life in Patients With Advanced Cancer

What are the patterns of broad-spectrum antibiotic use at the end of life among patients with advanced cancer?In this nationwide cohort study including 515 366 decedents with advanced cancer, the proportion of patients receiving broad-spectrum antibiotics peaked at 3 months to 1 month before death, whereas total antibiotic consumption was highest at 1 month to 2 weeks before death. Broad-spectrum antibiotic exposure was consistently more frequent in hematologic cancers than in solid tumors across all periods.These findings suggest that broad-spectrum antibiotic use in patients with advanced cancer was not randomly distributed but clustered in specific end-of-life periods, and this knowledge could be used to optimize use and align care with patient goals.

Corresponding Authors: Shin Hye Yoo, MD, PhD, Center for Palliative Care and Clinical Ethics, Seoul National University Hospital, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03080, South Korea (ifi1024@snu.ac.kr); Jin-Ah Sim, PhD, Department of Artificial Intelligence Convergence, Hallym University, 1 Hallymdaehak-gil, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do 24252, South Korea (jin-ah.sim@hallym.ac.kr).

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