inpatient oncology

oncology

onco

prompt of inpatient oncology 󰒗

Cancer type

  • Anatomical location of primary tumor (e.g., bladder)
  • Histologic type or subtype (e.g., urothelial cancer)

Cancer grade

  • Based on microscopic assessment of the appearance of the tissue cells and amount of abnormality on pathologic examination
  • Can be graded as low, intermediate, or high

Cancer stage

Associated prognostic genetic mutations

  • Germline mutations can be associated with higher risk for cancer (e.g., BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations associated with breast and ovarian cancer)
  • Somatic mutations can affect prognosis or treatment (e.g., epidermal growth factor receptor [EGFR] and anaplastic lymphoma kinase [ALK] gene mutations associated with non–small-cell lung cancer)

Disease course and aim of treatment

  • Establish goal of current cancer treatment: curative or palliative (to prolong life and avoid symptoms or complications associated with the malignancy)

  • Review treatment to date (timing and other details):

Local therapies: surgery, radiation

Systemic therapies: traditional chemotherapy, targeted therapies, immune checkpoint inhibitors

Understand response to treatments to date

Reason for hospitalization

  • Can be unrelated to the cancer, due to complications of treatment (e.g., neutropenic fever from chemotherapy, colitis from immune checkpoint inhibitor), or due to complications of disease (e.g., biliary obstruction from pancreatic cancer)

  • Some patients may present for inpatient care with debilitating symptoms of cancer and require palliative care