Financial Implications of Early Hospital Discharge After AML-Like Induction Chemotherapy: A 4-Year Retrospective Analysis

Background: Early hospital discharge (EHD) after intensive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) induction chemotherapy has become routine at the University of Washington/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance over the past several years. We assessed the financial implications of EHD over the first 4 years after its broad adoption for patients with AML and other high-grade myeloid neoplasms undergoing AML-like induction chemotherapy. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively compared charges between 189 patients with EHD who received all postinduction inpatient/outpatient care within our care system between August 2014 and July 2018 and 139 medically matched control patients who remained hospitalized for logistical reasons. Charges from the day of initial discharge (patients with EHD) or end of chemotherapy (control patients) until blood count recovery, additional chemotherapy or care transition, hospital discharge (for control patients only), an elapse of 42 days, or death were extracted from financial databases and separated into categories: facility/provider, emergency department, transfusions, laboratory, imaging, pharmacy, and miscellaneous. Results: Combined charges averaged $4,157/day (range, $905–$13,119/day) for patients with EHD versus $9,248/day (range, $4,363–$48,522/day) for control patients (P<.001). The EHD cohort had lower mean facility/provider, transfusion, laboratory, and pharmacy charges but not imaging or miscellaneous charges. During readmissions, there was no statistically significant difference in daily inpatient charges between the EHD and control cohorts. After multivariable adjustment, average charges were $3,837/day lower for patients with EHD (P<.001). Conclusions: Together with previous data from our center showing that EHD is safe and associated with reduced healthcare resource utilization, this study further supports this care approach for AML and other high-grade myeloid neoplasms if infrastructure is available to enable close outpatient follow-up.

#35: Safety of Early Hospital Discharge of Neutropenic Pediatric Oncology Patients After Febrile Neutropenia

Background Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in children in Mexico. Infections are the main cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients. Febrile neutropenia (FN) constitutes an infectious emergency and early aggressive antibiotic treatment is the standard of care. Recent guidelines suggest discontinuing empirical antibiotics in patients who have negative blood cultures at 48 hours, who have been afebrile for at least 24 hours, and who have evidence of marrow recovery. Nevertheless, recommendations about discontinuing antibiotics and discharging patients while they are still neutropenic are less clear. We aimed to evaluate the safety of early hospital discharge of FN patients who are still neutropenic. Methods Observational, case–control study nested in a prospective cohort of pediatric oncology patients with FN at Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez (HIMFG) in Mexico City from May 2015 to September 2017. We defined early discharge as when a patient is discharged while neutropenic (ANC &lt;500 cell/mm3) and has completed at least 7 days of antibiotics. Patients with FN who were discharged with neutropenia were defined as cases and patients with FN who were discharged after recovering from neutropenia were controls. To assess the safety of hospital early discharge, the following outcomes were analyzed until 7 days after discharge: new onset of fever, hospital readmission, need to restart antibiotic treatment, septic shock, and death. Descriptive statistics were performed with measures of central tendency. Variables of interest were compared with Pearson’s χ 2 or Student’s test. Results In total, 929 febrile neutropenia episodes were analyzed. The mean age was 7.5 years, 55.3% were female. Hematologic malignancies were the most frequent type of malignances in 50.8%. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was the underlying disease in 41%. Of the 929 FN episodes, 180 (19.3%) were discharged with neutropenia. Patients with ALL were the most frequent in 49.4%, followed by acute myeloid leukemia 18.8% and rhabdomyosarcoma 6.6%. Thirty-five percent were in maintenance therapy, 22% in remission induction therapy, and 9% in consolidation. 19.4% of discharged patients received granulocyte-colony stimulating factor. Ten patients (5.5%) were re-admitted during the 7 days following discharge. Six patients returned for chemotherapy administration and one was scheduled for liver biopsy. Three patients were re-admitted due to infectious complications (1.6%), none of them were under oral antibiotic treatment; two patients due to FN without microbiological isolation and one patient with septic shock due to multi-drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Older patients had a higher risk of readmission, with a mean age of 14.6 years (SD 4.6 years, 95% CI 7.7–21.6) (P = 0.01), compared with the mean of 7.7 years (SD 2.7 years, (95% CI 7.0, – 8.4) of patients who were not re-admitted. Conclusions In our population of pediatric patients with FN who were discharged before neutrophil recovery, readmission due to infectious complications was low (1.6%). Discharging patients with persistent neutropenia who are afebrile and had completed a course of antibiotics seems an acceptable practice with a low risk of readmission.

Evaluation of a Safe Neutrophil Count for Cessation of IV Antibiotics and Early Hospital Discharge in Stable, Afebrile Patients Recovering after Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) Therapy or an Autograft

Background Currently there are no guidelines on a safe neutrophil count for intravenous antibiotic (IVAB) cessation and hospital discharge in haematology patients recovering after myelosuppressive chemotherapy complicated by febrile neutropenia (FN). Aims We assessed the safety in stable afebrile patients after recent FN of (i) appropriately stopping IVAB and (ii) early hospital discharge respectively within 24 hrs of absolute neutrophil count (ANC) recovery to ≥0.2x10^9/L. Appropriate cessation required a minimum of 3 days of IVAB and no focus of unresolved infection. Safety was defined as the absence of (i) fever recurrence after IVAB cessation and (ii) readmission in the 10-days post discharge for non-line related bacterial sepsis. Barriers to early discharge were also evaluated. Methods A retrospective, single centre audit on adult haematology patients admitted with AML (n=73 courses of induction or consolidation; 27 patients) or for an autograft (n=68 admissions;65 patients) between 2017-2019 and 2016-2017 respectively. Exclusion criteria included patients with secondary AML, reduced intensity AML chemotherapy (low dose cytarabine or azacitidine) and outpatient IVAB use post-discharge. Patients who continued on oral antibiotics as inpatients or on discharge were included in the analysis. Data were analysed with Mann Whitney U test, Chi square test and Fisher's exact test where appropriate. Results Both cohorts had a median age of 59 years. Autograft conditioning consisted mostly of high dose melphalan alone (57%) or with busulfan (7%) and BEAM (19%). All of the AML regimens contained either intermediate or high-dose cytarabine and/or an anthracycline. Most admissions (n=128; 91%) were complicated by FN, 32% (n=41) with positive blood cultures. Nearly half (n=61; 48%) of FN episodes ceased IVAB appropriately with 22/61 (36%) transitioned to oral antibiotics; another 19 (15%) episodes ceased IVAB prior to ANC ≥0.2. None of these 80 episodes had recurrent fever requiring IVAB resumption. IVAB were continued in the remaining 48 (37%) episodes, due to (a) unresolved fever (n=21) (b) recent bacteraemia or unresolved infective focus (n=17) or (c) empirically at physician discretion (n=10), for a median (range) duration of 3 (1-10), 3 (1-15) and 2 (1-5) days respectively. Thirty-seven (29%) of all FN episodes were discharged on oral antibiotics. Discharge within 24h from ANC≥0.2 occurred in 47% overall; more frequently in AML (60%) vs autograft (32%; p=0.001) patients, predominantly due to less unresolved gastrointestinal toxicity (5% vs 59% respectively). Other barriers to early discharge with an incidence of &gt;5% included IVAB use, persistent fever, analgesia for mainly mucositis and transfusion requirement. Unplanned readmission rates were low (6% autograft, 3% AML) with none due to confirmed non-line related bacteraemia; these did not differ according to discharge ANC (≤0.5 or &gt;0.5; p=0.217). Conclusion In afebrile, clinically stable AML and autograft patients without medico-social barriers to early discharge, IVAB can be ceased and hospital discharges safely done within 24h from recovery ANC≥0.2. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.