Dying of hematological oncology patients often take place in respective hematology ward or intensive care unit rather than hospice. With the increased attention to quality palliative care for hematology patients, concerns regarding their level of medical care at end-of-life need to be addressed. We conducted a retrospective review of consecutive hematological oncology patients who succumbed in a palliative unit between July 2012 and August 2013. The primary outcome measure was their level of medical care received, including administration of antibiotics, total parenteral nutrition, blood sampling, GCSF injection and blood products transfusion, during their last seven days of life. During the last seven days of life, 85.7 % of patients had blood sampling and 23.8% of patients received G-CSF injection. Total parenteral nutrition was administered in 14.3% of patients. One-third of patients received transfusion of packed cells and nearly half of them received transfusion of platelet concentrates. Almost 90% of patients received antibiotics during their last week of life. Collaboration between hematology and palliative care has resulted in successful transition of hematologic cancer patients into hospice unit in their terminal phase of illness. However, their level of medical care, even approaching last seven days of life, remained intensive. Proper allocation of medical resources and future research regarding optimal end-of-life care for hematology patients are warranted.

Background: Structured advance care planning (ACP) program is an important service in the end-of-life care for patients with advanced medical illness. We pioneered a structured and coordinated ACP program for patients with advanced malignancies and end-stage organ failure in Hong Kong. This study investigated the impact of a structured ACP program on the concordance rate for patients' final wishes, patient/family satisfaction, and the number of acute admissions (AA) and length of stay (LOS) in hospital.Methods: Patients with advanced malignancy or end-stage organ failure who were able to complete ACP forms during the current admission to medical units were recruited. Patients who could not complete ACP forms or <18 years of age were excluded. The ACP program comprised the following components: (I) baseline education (workshop/role play) in ACP sessions for linked nurses of different medical units; (II) structured ACP discussions with recruited patients and their proxies during admission, after any change in clinical status, and also at monthly intervals; (III) formal structured review of patients' goals at regular team meetings; (IV) "flagging" of advance directive (AD) in hospital computer system and (V) feedback to linked nurse on the congruence of care. Mentally competent patients who did not receive ACP and matched for disease and demographics were selected as controls in a 1:2.5 ratio.Results: Two hundred forty-three patients were included for analysis between August 2016 and July 2017, of which 69 patients joined the ACP program and 174 of them did not. Two hundred and one patients (83%) had advanced cancer. All had done do-not-attempt-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation (DNACPR) order in the ACP group. The concordance rates for patients' wishes on quality of life, end-of-life and funeral arrangements were 95%, 100% and 100% respectively. Over 70% of patients and their families (N=10) showed satisfaction with the program. The ACP group also had lower mean AA and shorter LOS (0.78±0.23 vs. 1.2±0.8 episode/patient, 4.6±1.7 vs. 7.5±2.5 days, P=0.037 and P=0.023 respectively) in the last 3 months of life compared with the non-ACP group.Conclusions: This ACP program achieved high concordance rate for patients' wish items and reduced healthcare utilization.

Background: Evidence showed that early palliative care could have many benefits in clinical outcomes for patients living with advanced medical illnesses. In fact, most of these studies have not involved patients with advanced haematologic cancer (HC), which are known to be associated with significant physical and psychological symptoms. In Hong Kong, an Early Integrated Palliative Care (EIPC) collaboration involving both Heamatology unit of Queen Mary Hospital (QMH) and the Palliative Medical Unit of Grantham Hospital (GH) has been started since early 2018 as a better way to improve the service gap. The HC patients failed 2 or more lines of cancer treatment are identified during the joint round and hematology clinic. Some of these patients will be referred to our PC services. Our joint PC clinic has multidisciplinary input from palliative care physicians, hematologists, and clinical psychologists. The clinic program is well coordinated and structured. The HC patients are initially seen by the parent team for disease treatment and then by GH PC team for symptom control and psychosocial care.Methods: This was a retrospective study with a review of the clinical charts and electronic healthcare records of all patients who attended the Hematology PC clinic from June 2018 to September 2020. For the inclusion criteria, patients were found eligible if they had prospectively completed Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) assessments for at least the initial and follow-up visits within a range of ≥7 days and ≤60 days of the first visit. Results: Thirty-eight patients ultimately agreed to the referral. The mean age was 70.5 (12.5) years old.Twenty-five patients (66%) had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS); 10 (26%) had acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Around 50-60% of patients reported significant symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, drowsiness, and anorexia; 42% of patients had significantly depressed moods while 37% had pain. There were significant symptom improvements for pain, depression, and anxiety after follow-up visits. Conclusions:The study showed that our EIPC program resulted in a significant reduction in some of the important symptom item scores, including pain, anorexia, anxiety, and depression, after the follow-up visits.

Background and Objective: Recent advances have led to cure or long-term disease control for patients with hematological malignancy (HM). Unfortunately, some of them still have poor prognoses and are often associated with significant symptom burden and poor quality of life for patients and families. These patients usually require supportive care including red blood cell and platelet transfusion, due to disease itself and the oncological treatment, apart from their symptom management. However, there is currently lack of the literatures review in these aspects. The objective of this review is to summarize practical supportive care recommendations for physicians or nurses practicing in palliative care (PC)/hematology-oncology unit, starting with core approaches in use of blood products for anemia and thrombocytopenia, management of tumor lysis syndrome, PC and oncology nursing care.

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