Decreased aggressive care at the end of life among advanced cancer patients in the Republic of Korea: a nationwide study from 2012 to 2018

Background This study aimed to investigate the trends of aggressive care at the end-of-life (EoL) for patients with advanced cancer in Korea and to identify factors affecting such care analyzing nationwide data between 2012 to 2018.

Methods This was a population-based, retrospective nationwide study.

We used administrative data from the National Health Insurance Service and the Korea Central Cancer Registry to analyze 125,350 patients aged 20 years and above who died within one year of a stage IV cancer diagnosis between 2012 and 2018.

Results The overall aggressiveness of EoL care decreased between 2012 and 2018.

In patients’ last month of life, chemotherapy use (37.1% to 32.3%; p  < 0.05), cardiopulmonary resuscitation (13.2% to 10.4%; p  < 0.05), and intensive care unit admission (15.2% to 11.1%; p  < 0.05) decreased during the study period, although no significant trend was noted in the number of emergency room visits.

A steep increase was seen in inpatient hospice use in the last month of life (8.6% to 26.6%; p  < 0.05), while downward trends were observed for hospice admission within three days prior to death (13.9% to 11%; p  < 0.05).

Patients were more likely to receive aggressive EoL care if they were younger, women, had treatment in tertiary hospitals, or had hematologic malignancies.

In the subgroup analysis, the overall trend of aggressive EoL care decreased for all five major cancer types.

Conclusion The aggressiveness of EoL care in stage IV cancer patients showed an overall decrease during 2012–2018 in Korea.