-, Riya Patel

e24089 Background: Pancreatic cancer is associated with high symptom burden and frequent acute care utilization. Although early palliative care improves quality of life in advanced malignancies, real-world data describing its timing and downstream impact in pancreatic cancer remain limited. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using Epic Cosmos (2015–2025). Adults (≥18 years) with pancreatic cancer were identified using ICD-10 code C25.*. Early palliative care was defined as a documented palliative care encounter (ICD-10 Z51.5) within 0–2 months of cancer diagnosis. Patients were categorized as early palliative care versus not-early palliative care (late or no palliative care). A landmark approach was applied, with outcomes assessed beginning 2 months after diagnosis to mitigate immortal time bias. Outcomes included opioid use, antiemetic use, occupational/physical therapy (OT/PT) utilization, emergency department (ED) encounters resulting in inpatient admission, and inpatient length of stay. Results: Among 4,641 patients with pancreatic cancer, 464 (10.0%) received early palliative care, 365 (7.9%) received palliative care later, and 3,812 (82.1%) had no documented palliative care encounter. Compared with patients without early palliative care, early palliative care recipients demonstrated higher utilization of symptom-directed interventions, including opioids (40.6% vs 22.5%), antiemetics (37.2% vs 20.3%), and occupational/physical therapy services (6.2% vs 3.2%). Early palliative care was associated with a higher proportion of emergency department encounters resulting in inpatient admission (52.5% vs 23.6%), consistent with earlier consolidation of symptom-driven care. Mean inpatient length of stay was similar between groups (6.0 vs 6.2 days). Overall survival appeared comparable between groups; however, survival estimates in EHR-based analyses are limited by residual confounding and timing constraints. Conclusions: In a large national EHR cohort, early palliative care within two months of pancreatic cancer diagnosis was infrequently used but was associated with greater engagement in symptom-directed medications and supportive services, as well as a distinct downstream pattern of acute care utilization. These findings suggest that earlier integration of palliative care may improve coordination of symptom-focused care and represent an actionable quality-of-care target in pancreatic cancer.

e19559 Background: Timely initiation of systemic therapy is critical in multiple myeloma (MM), yet real-world variation in time to treatment initiation (TTI) and its association with clinical outcomes, treatment-related toxicities, and supportive care utilization remain incompletely characterized. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Epic Cosmos database (2015–2025). Adults with MM were identified using ICD-10-CM code C90. TTI was defined as days from MM diagnosis to first exposure to systemic anti-myeloma therapy, including proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, or anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies. Patients were stratified into TTI < 30 days (n = 90015), 30–60(n = 81190), and > 60 days(119,245). Primary outcomes included mortality, infection (sepsis or pneumonia), AKI within 30 days, DVT/PE, and bone marrow transplant (BMT). Secondary outcomes included hemodialysis initiation, febrile neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, herpes zoster reactivation, and use of bone-protective therapy (zoledronic acid, pamidronate, or denosumab) and antiviral prophylaxis (acyclovir/valacyclovir). Outcomes are presented as unadjusted percentages with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Mortality demonstrated a U-shaped association with TTI, occurring in 22.99%, 21.32%, and 21.32% of patients in the < 30-day, 30–60-day, and > 60-day cohorts, respectively. Infection rates were 16.42%, 17.11%, and 17.30%, while AKI < 30 occurred in 16.01%, 16.38%, and 16.49%. BMT utilization was highest in the 30–60-day cohort (19.14%) compared with < 30 days (18.28%) and > 60 days (18.21%). VTE rates increased modestly with delayed treatment (9.39%, 9.82%, and 10.10%). HD occurred in 3.15%, 3.08%, and 3.07% of patients. Febrile neutropenia occurred in 17.15%, 18.03%, and 17.55%, thrombocytopenia in 13.34%, 13.93%, and 13.86%, and herpes zoster reactivation in 1.21%, 1.29%, and 1.42%. Antiviral prophylaxis use was highest in the 30–60-day cohort (91.25%) compared with < 30 days (88.48%) and > 60 days (88.23%). Bone-protective therapy use was also highest in the 30–60-day cohort (31.68%) versus < 30 days (28.90%) and > 60 days (23.79%). Conclusions: In this large real-world analysis, initiation of systemic therapy within 30–60 days of MM diagnosis was associated with lower mortality, higher transplant utilization, and greater use of guideline-recommended supportive care compared with both earlier and delayed treatment initiation. Patients treated within 30 days appeared to represent a higher-acuity phenotype, while delays beyond 60 days were associated with lower supportive care uptake and higher thrombotic risk. These findings suggest that time to treatment initiation may reflect both disease severity and care delivery quality, and identify a potentially actionable window to optimize treatment pathways and supportive care in multiple myeloma.