Early death after a diagnosis of metastatic solid cancer–raising awareness and identifying risk factors from the SEER database

BACKGROUND: Cancer death rates are declining, in part due to smoking cessation, better detection and new treatments; nevertheless, a large fraction of metastatic cancer patients die soon after diagnosis. Few studies and interventions focus on these patients. Our study aims to characterize early mortality in a wide range of metastatic solid tumors. METHODS: We retrieved data on adult patients diagnosed with pathologically confirmed de- novo metastatic solid tumors between the years 2004–2016 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (SEER). Our primary outcome was cancer specific early death rate (defined as death within two months of diagnosis). Additional data extracted included socio-demographical data, tumor primary, sites of metastases, and cause of death. RESULTS: 109,207 (20.8%) patients died of de-novo metastatic cancer within two months of diagnosis. The highest rates of early death were found in hepatic (36%), pancreato-biliary (31%) and lung (25%) primaries. Factors associated with early death included primary site, liver, and brain metastases, increasing age, and lower income. Cancer was the cause of death in 92.1% of all early deaths. Two-month mortality rates have moderately improved during the study period (from 22.4% in 2004 to 18.8% in 2016). CONCLUSION: A fifth of de-novo metastatic cancer patients die soon after diagnosis, with little improvement over the last decade. Further research is required to better classify and identify patients at risk for early mortality, which patients might benefit from faster diagnostic tracks, and which might avoid invasive and futile diagnostic procedures.