Cannabis use in palliative care: The prevalence and clinical characteristics.

245Background: Cannabis has growing attention in palliative care, been used for some cancer related symptom burden, but limited data in terms of prevalence in palliative care setting and clinical characteristics with using it. Purpose: To identify the prevalence of positive rate of cannabis metabolite on urine drug sample (UDS) and compare clinical characteristics focused on symptoms burden on Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) on the same day of UDS. Methods: We conducted retrospective medical records review of 919 consecutive supportive care clinic patients who were seen at a National Cancer Institute center during a 12-month period between 7/01/2015 to 6/30/2016. Results: 531 out of 919 patients were excluded because UDS was not ordered: either patients were established or had low risk of substance abuse by clinicians’ judgement. 2 patients did not complete ESAS on same day of UDS. 137 patients were excluded because of missing UDS results as well. Finally, 249 out of 919 patients were included fo...