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N. Stones



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    O14 - Radiotherapy - Toxicity and Clinical Trials (ID 105)

    • Event: WCLC 2013
    • Type: Oral Abstract Session
    • Track: Radiation Oncology + Radiotherapy
    • Presentations: 1
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      O14.06 - Investigation of a Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) tool to assess radiotherapy-related toxicity in patients with lung cancer (ID 1614)

      11:25 - 11:35  |  Author(s): N. Stones

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background
      Discrepancies between clinician and patient reported symptoms validate the investigation of a PRO tool in clinical trials and routine practice. There is a paucity of data regarding the feasibility and relevance of PRO tools to assess radiotherapy toxicity in patients with lung cancer.

      Methods
      From January to June 2013, lung cancer patients undergoing thoracic radiotherapy or chemo-radiotherapy completed a PRO toxicity tool (adapted Radiogenomics Biorepository and Databank lung questionnaire) consisting of 9 patient-adapted Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) items and World Health Organisation (WHO) performance status (PS) at baseline, at the end of radiotherapy and at 4-10 weeks follow-up (FU). At the same time points, patients completed the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life (QoL) Questionnaire along with its lung cancer specific module (EORTC QLQ-C30/LC13) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Clinicians completed the same CTCAE items for each time point. Agreement between patients’ and clinicians’ toxicity reports was assessed using weighted kappa coefficients. The patients’ QoL and HADS scores were correlated with the patients’ and clinicians’ reported toxicity using Spearman rank correlation coefficients.

      Results
      Of the 116 patients consented, 70 (85 paired responses) completed all 3 questionnaires for at least one time point excluding baseline. Median age was 71.5 years (39-89 years), 54.3% of the patients were male and 85.7% had a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer. Agreement between patients’ and clinicians’ reported toxicity ranged from poor to substantial (Figure 1). Perfect agreement was ≥50% for all assessed items with the exception of PS for both the end of radiotherapy and FU. The majority of discrepancies (≥74%) differed by 1 grade of toxicity. At the end of radiotherapy patients reported greater severity than clinicians for all items but not for PS; however this was less pronounced at FU. QoL scores were generally more strongly correlated with the patients’ compared to clinicians’ matching toxicity grades at the exception of dyspnoea. The correlation of HADS scores with patients’ CTCAE anxiety and depression grades ranged from moderate-to-low to moderate. There was no correlation with clinicians’ grading for depression and no-to-moderate correlation for anxiety. The adapted Radiogenomics Biorepository and Databank lung questionnaire demonstrated a high Cronbach’s α value (0.848) indicating good reliability. Figure 1

      Conclusion
      The use of a PRO tool in radiotherapy for lung cancer is feasible, reliable and acceptable to patients and complements the clinicians’ assessment. Further research is required to evaluate its validity.

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