Can A Dedicated Multidisciplinary Tumor Board Improve Personalized Medicine for Patients in Interventional Oncology? A Large Retrospective Single-Center Experience

Abstract

OBJECTIVE Interventional oncology (IO) offers minimal invasive oncological procedures to personalize therapeu- tic approaches. We aimed at assessing potential advantages of an IO multidisciplinary tumor board (INTER-BOARD) in terms of waiting time, procedural adverse events, and length of hospital stay. METHODS We retrospectively evaluated all patients managed at our institutional INTER-BOARD from January 2018 to June 2019. Outcome measurements such as number of patients managed in each semester, me- dian interval time between initial assessment and admission to the hospital, total number of procedures, procedures type, adverse events, and complication-related days of hospital stay were analyzed. RESULTS The INTER-BOARD discussed 438 patients (mean age 64 years; range 27-92) during the study period. Overall, 203 procedures were performed in patients >65 years and 49 in patients >80 years. The number of patients discussed progressively increased over time 82 (18.7%) during the first semester, 120 (27.4%) during the second semester, and 236 (54.1%) in the third semester. Patients with 33 different cancer types were discussed and 22 different procedure types were performed. Mean hospitalization time was 4 days (progressively decreasing over time from 5 to 3 days). Adverse events occurred in 4% of cases, with a progressively decreasing rate over time (16%, 5%, and 3% for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd semester, respectively). CONCLUSION In our experience, the dedicated INTER-BOARD allowed optimization of patient care through critical evaluation of all treatment options offered by different specialists. This approach reached optimal treat- ment results, with low adverse events, and reduced waiting, as well as hospitalization time.