Main findings of the study
cancer
CANCER, ADVANCED CANCER
This is the first randomised controlled trial to investigate the impact of advance care planning on healthcare costs in patients with advanced cancer in Europe. We found that the use and costs of hospital care were lower in the advance care planning intervention group. These reduced costs are at least partly attributed to differences in patient characteristics between the intervention and control groups, such as age, country of residence, being religious, type of cancer, and WHO performance status. The complete-case analysis showed no association between the intervention and costs. A definite impact of the intervention could therefore not be established based on our findings. Advance care planning has previously been found to be associated with reduced healthcare use and costs,We observed that survival at 12 months follow-up was significantly lower in the intervention group (We found that healthcare use and cost patterns differed per country, with higher costs in Denmark and the United Kingdom. Differences in length of hospital stay per country, as observed in our study, are potentially related to a range of circumstances, such as differences in organisation of care