Table 2.
Prevalence of end-of-life decisions in patients dying from cancer in 2013 in Flanders, Belgium (n = 1394)
| ELD made or not | Type of ELD made | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sudden and unexpected death, no ELD made |
Non-sudden death, no ELD made |
Non-sudden death, at least one ELD made |
Non-treatment decision | Intensified alleviation of pain or symptoms | Euthanasia or physician-assisted suicidea | Life abbreviation without explicit patient request | |
| Cancer type | Weighted %b | Weighted %b | |||||
| All cancer deaths (n = 1394) | 22.6 | 11.3 | 66.1 | 12.1 | 41.7 | 10.4 | 1.8 |
| Gastrointestinal (n = 417) | 23.8 | 10.8 | 65.5 | 12.3 | 41.4 | 10.5 | 1.3 |
| Respiratory (n = 334) | 20.0 | 10.6 | 69.4 | 14.0 | 41.8 | 12.6 | 1.0 |
| Genitourinary (n = 252) | 24.2 | 8.8 | 67.1 | 12.2 | 42.8 | 8.7 | 3.4 |
| Breast (n = 113) | 21.5 | 17.6 | 60.9 | 7.6 | 41.2 | 10.2 | 1.9 |
| Haematological (n = 106) | 22.1 | 16.6 | 61.3 | 12.3 | 37.5 | 9.0 | 2.4 |
| Otherc (n = 172) | 23.8 | 9.7 | 66.5 | 11.0 | 44.0 | 9.7 | 1.8 |
| P-valued | .868 | .132 | .590 | .724 | .947 | .750 | .465 |
Percentages are row percentages
ELD end-of-life decision with possible or certain life-shortening effect
aFive of 211 patients were cases of physician-assisted suicide
bPercentages are weighted for the disproportionate stratification and differences in the distribution of mortality characteristics between the response sample and all patient deaths
c‘Other’ category includes head and neck; bone and articular cartilage; skin; eye, brain, and central nervous system; thyroid and endocrine glands; ill-defined, secondary, and unspecified sites; independent (primary) multiple sites
dBivariate differences between patients with different cancer types calculated using Pearson’s χ2-tests