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Clinical assessment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy: a discrete choice experiment of patient preferences

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Abstract

Purpose

Up to 40% of cancer patients treated with neurotoxic chemotherapies experience chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). Currently, there is no gold standard assessment tool for CIPN and there is little information in the literature on patient preferences for such assessments. This study aims to address this gap by identifying the features of a CIPN assessment tool that cancer patients value.

Methods

An online discrete choice experiment (DCE) survey of neurotoxic chemotherapy–treated patients was implemented. Respondents completed 8 choice questions each. In each choice question, they chose between two hypothetical CIPN assessment tools, each described by six attributes: impact on quality of life; level of nerve damage detected; questionnaire length; physical tests involved; impact on clinic time; impact on care.

Results

The survey was completed by 117 respondents who had a range of cancers of which breast cancer was the most common. Respondents favoured an assessment tool that includes a physical test and that asks about impact on quality of life. Respondents were strongly opposed to clinicians, alone, deciding how the results of a CIPN assessment might influence their care especially their chemotherapy treatment. They were concerned about small changes in their CIPN, independent of clinical relevance. Respondents were willing to add half an hour to the usual clinic time to accommodate the CIPN assessment.

Conclusion

The findings of this DCE will assist clinicians in choosing an assessment tool for CIPN that is satisfactory to both clinician and patient.

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Availability of data and material

Please contact the authors for further details.

Code availability

Software application: R Studio

Funding

This study was supported by a Cancer Institute NSW Program Grant (14/TPG/1-05) and a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) Project Grant (#1080521). SBP is supported by a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (#1148595).

As part of the development of the online survey, cognitive interviews were conducted. Participants were recruited from the Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) Review and Survey Group. This is a national, online group of Australian women living with breast cancer who are interested in receiving invitations to participate in research. We acknowledge the contribution of the women involved in the Review and Survey Group who participated in this project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology Sydney (CHERE), Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Alice Yu, Deborah Street, Rosalie Viney, Stephen Goodall, Philip Haywood & Marion Haas

  2. University of Sydney (Sydney School of Public Health), Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Alison Pearce

  3. University of New South Wales (Prince of Wales Clinical School), Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Eva Battaglini & David Goldstein

  4. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Hannah Timmins

  5. Brain and Mind Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Susanna B. Park

Authors
  1. Alice Yu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alice Yu.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was received from the Human Research Ethics Committee, University of Technology Sydney (ETH19-3464 and ETH18-2507) for this study.

Consent to participate/for publication

On the information page, respondents were given the following information in regard to participation and publication.

What will happen to information about me?

Submission of the online questionnaire is an indication of your consent. By continuing to answer the survey questions, you consent to the research team collecting and using personal information about you for the research project. All this information will be treated confidentially. No identifying information will be collected as part of study nor will the researchers have access to identifying information. The data will be stored securely.

Data collected will be used for the purpose of this research project and potentially in future research projects that aim to improve on the methods used to design questionnaires of this general type. In all instances, results from the survey will be published in a form that does not identify you.

We plan to discuss the results among the researchers involved in this project and with our partner organisation, the IN FOCUS Study. IN FOCUS is interested in using these results to inform the development of a potential peripheral neuropathy assessment tool. As mentioned previously, no identifying information will be collected and in any publication, results will only be in the form of summary quantitative information.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Yu, A., Street, D., Viney, R. et al. Clinical assessment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy: a discrete choice experiment of patient preferences. Support Care Cancer 29, 6379–6387 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06196-8

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