Interdisciplinary short-term oncology: A model for outpatient, multimodal treatment of tumor patients

Since 10/1994 the Interdisziplinare Kurzzeit-Onkologie (IKO) is an outpatient department for the treatment of patients with cancer used by the departments of hematology/oncology and surgery. Between 09/1995 and 02/1997, 818 patients received 2024 cytotoxic therapies with neoadjuvant (15%), adjuvant (65%) or palliative (20%) intention mostly within multicenter clinical studies. Ambulatory operations like removal of lymph nodes for diagnosis or the implantation of venous catheter systems prepared the way for specialized modalities of cancer therapy. The high compliance and consent of patients, combined with better understanding of cancer therapy, resulted in an enhanced quality of life and optimized therapy. Standardization in diagnostics and fast realisation of interdisciplinary treatment schedules lead to reduction of costs and to enhancement of quality and security in cancer therapy.