Critical care management of lung cancer patients to prolong life without prolonging dying

Excerpt

Over the last few decades, numerous studies showing improved short-term survival rates in critically ill patients with solid tumors or hematological malignancies have put an end to the long-accepted practice of routinely refusing admission of cancer patients to the intensive care unit (ICU) [1‐3]. Survival gains were demonstrated in patients with a variety of characteristics including neutropenia [4], severe sepsis [5, 6], acute kidney injury [7], prolonged ICU admission [8] and recent chemotherapy [9], as well as in specific subgroups of patients believed to have very low chances of survival, such as patients with lung cancer [10, 11]. These studies highlighted not only the beneficial impact of advances in critical care and in hematology and oncology, but also the inadequacy of our triage criteria [12]. Furthermore, they have established that a crucial goal is the early management (and even prevention) of organ dysfunction [13, 14]. …