Unmasking the MASCC score: A retrospective study.

e18763 Background: Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a common oncological emergency in patients receiving anticancer treatments. The Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) and the Clinical Index of the Stable Febrile Neutropenia (CISNE) are validated risk assessment tools widely used to guide the need for hospital admission. There is sparse research regarding the utility of these scores in predicting in-hospital outcomes. Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of patients admitted with FN from 2012 to 2022 in our community-based teaching hospital and compared the performances of MASCC and CISNE scores on in-hospital outcomes such as length of hospital stay, duration of intravenous (IV) antibiotics, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, pressor use, length of ICU stay, in-hospital mortality and cost of hospital stay. Logistic regression was applied to calculate the unadjusted odds ratio for qualitative outcomes and linear regression to calculate the association for quantitative outcomes. Results: Among 139 patients screened, 100 met the inclusion criteria. Sixty eight percent of patients were 65 years or older, 53% were females, the most common presenting complaint was fever/chills (46%) and 67% had underlying hematologic malignancies. Patients with high-risk MASCC scores (HM) were noted to have higher odds of ICU admission (OR 20.3), pressor use (OR 5.09), and in-hospital mortality (OR 4.11) compared to those with low-risk MASCC scores (LM). Patients with HM had 3.3 days longer hospital stay and 2.3 days longer ICU stay compared to patients with LM with the mean duration being 6.5 days and 1.59 days, respectively. Patients with HM required 3.1 additional days of IV antibiotics compared to those with LM, with the mean duration of 5.23 days. The mean cost of stay was 52,890 USD, with an additional cost of 42,086.95 USD for patients with HM than for patients with LM. Comparisons of CISNE scores showed no statistical significance for any of the above-mentioned hospital outcomes and cost of the stay. Conclusions: FN patients with HM were found to have worse in-hospital outcomes and more expensive hospital stay than patients with LM. Our study highlighted the utility of MASCC score as a potential screening tool at the time of admission to predict severity of illness and guide resource utilization. [Table: see text]