Table 1.
Sociodemographic and medical characteristics of the patients*
| N | Per cent | |
|---|---|---|
| Sex | ||
| Male | 27 | 61 |
| Female | 17 | 39 |
| Marital status | ||
| Married/cohabiting | 32 | 73 |
| Single/widowed/divorced | 11 | 44 |
| Missing | 1 | 2 |
| Living situation | ||
| With others | 32 | 73 |
| Alone | 12 | 27 |
| Education | ||
| Compulsory or less | 17 | 39 |
| High school graduate | 15 | 34 |
| College/university | 11 | 25 |
| Missing | 1 | 2 |
| Diagnoses | ||
| Gastrointestinal | 18 | 41 |
| Lung | 11 | 25 |
| Urological | 7 | 16 |
| Other† | 8 | 18 |
| Metastatic disease‡ | ||
| Presence of metastases | 40 | 91 |
| Site of metastases | ||
| Liver | 21 | 48 |
| Lymph nodes | 17 | 39 |
| Bone | 13 | 30 |
| Lung | 12 | 27 |
| Brain | 7 | 16 |
| Tumour-directed treatment, ongoing upon admission | ||
| Chemotherapy | 14 | 32 |
| Hormones | 3 | 6 |
| Median | Range | |
| Age | 66 | 53–89 |
| Survival | ||
| Overall survival§, days from first study entry | 50 | 1–500, 95% CI 51 to 115 |
*N=44, the number of individual patients accounting for the 50 emergency admissions.
†Breast (3), malignant melanoma (2), gynaecological (2) and unspecified (1).
‡Percentages exceed 100 because of the multiple sites per patient.
§N=43, one patient was still alive at follow-up.