Emergency anticancer therapy in intensive care medicine: A mainland China survey

Objective: To identify intensivists‘ attitudes toward emergency anticancer therapy (EAT) in patients with cancer in intensive care units (ICUs).
Material and methods: A 11-question survey was performed among intensivists in the Cancer Critical Care Medicine Committee of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association and Critical Care Medicine Committee of Beijing Association of Oncology between November 11 and December 11, 2024. Response were compared between mixed and oncologic ICU physicians.
Results: In total, 120 intensivists completed the survey. For 9 of 11 questions, the agreement rate exceeded 85%. There were 61.5% mixed ICU physicican and 35.5% oncologic ICU physicians in favor of compostion of the composition of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) composing of an intensivist, an oncologis and a pharmacist, respectively. However this difference was not significant (P=0.281).
Conclusions: Intensivists in China generally hold positive attitudes toward emergency anticancer therapy in ICUs for critically ill patients with cancer-related organ dysfunction. However, opinions differ regarding the MDT composition between mixed and oncologic ICU physicicans.