Inpatient palliative care utilisation among patients with gallbladder cancer in the United States: A 10‐year perspective

Objectives Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is a rare, poor‐prognosis cancer with unique demographics, comorbidities and a paucity of research. This study investigated inpatient palliative care and its associations with demographics, comorbidities (e.g., obesity), length of stay and hospital charges in GBC in US hospitals (2007–2016). Methods Data were extracted from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database that contains deidentified clinical and nonclinical information for each hospitalisation. Inpatient palliative care utilisation was identified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD‐9 and ICD‐10) codes (V66.7 and Z51.5). Generalised regression analysis was conducted with adjustment for variations in predictors. Results Of the 4921 reported GBC hospitalizations, only 10.3% encountered palliative care. Palliative care was associated with reduced hospital charges by $12,405 per hospitalisation (P 80 years, with more severe disease, and in‐hospital death (P