Inpatient Cancer Rehabilitation: A Retrospective Comparison of Transfer Back to Acute Care Between Patients With Neoplasm and Other Rehabilitation Patients

Alam E, Wilson RD, Vargo MM. Inpatient cancer rehabilitation: a retrospective comparison of transfer back to acute care between patients with neoplasm and other rehabilitation patients.

Objective

To determine whether patients with diagnoses of neoplasm undergoing acute rehabilitation differ from other patients in frequency of acute care transfer and type of medical complications.

Design

Retrospective cohort analysis.

Setting

Acute rehabilitation hospital located within an academic medical center.

Participants

Patients with diagnosis of neoplasm (n=40) and patients without neoplasm (n=253) requiring transfer were identified from a database of 2801 rehabilitation discharges over nearly a 4-year period.

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures

Frequency of unplanned transfer and reasons for the transfer.

Results

Significant difference occurred in overall rate of transfer between patients with neoplasm (21%) and controls (9.7%; P<.001). When evaluated separately for type of neoplasm (with patients receiving corresponding type of rehabilitation as controls), a significantly higher rate of transfer to acute care was found for brain tumor (25% vs 12%; P=.004) and spinal cord neoplasms (23% vs 10%; P=.009), but statistical significance was not reached for other tumor types (12.5% vs 7.4%; P=.19). Patients with stroke with neoplasm as a comorbidity, analyzed separately, with the other patients with stroke as controls, had significantly higher risk of transfer (22% vs 10%; P=.012). Logistic regression analysis found an odds ratio (OR) of 2.5 for unplanned transfer among patients with diagnosis of neoplasm (OR=2.5 for malignancy; OR=2.4 for benign neoplasm). Patients with neoplasm had infection as the most common reason for transfer (28% of the neoplasm transfers vs 18% of other transfers; P=.01), whereas in the nonneoplasm group, cardiopulmonary factors predominated (12% of patients with tumor vs 31% of patients without tumor transfers; P<.001).

Conclusions

In the present sample, patients with neoplasm were more likely to require transfer than patients without neoplasm, although this pattern did not reach statistical significance for noncentral nervous system cases. Overall, patients with neoplasm appear more likely than those without neoplasm to have an infectious cause for unplanned transfer. Increased awareness of this difference may lead to improved medical management on rehabilitation units.