Journal of palliative medicine
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Background: The optimal timing to introduce palliative care (PC) and end-of-life (EOL) conversations into the lives of people with cystic fibrosis (CF) has not been established. Objective: Compare EOL care practices for people with CF who died without a lung transplant (LT), are living without an LT, and those who received an LT. Design: Retrospective chart review. ⋯ Deceased patients were more likely to have seen PC (57%) than either patients who received LT (2%) or those living without LT (3%, p = 0.0001). Conclusions: Patients who died without LT were more likely to have seen PC and had an EOL conversation than patients who received LT or who are living without LT. Further research should explore the optimal timing to discuss EOL care and the best timing to involve PC.