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Measuring symptoms and toxicities: a 35-year experience

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Abstract

Purpose

When conducting trials aimed at the improvement of cancer-related and/or cancer treatment-related toxicities, it is important to determine the best means of measuring patients’ symptoms.

Methods

The authors of this current manuscript have an extensive experience with the conduct of symptom-control clinical trials. This experience is utilized to provide insight into the best means of measuring symptoms caused by cancer and/or cancer therapy.

Results

Patient-reported outcome data are preferable for measuring bothersome symptoms, for determining toxicities caused by treatment approaches, and offer more accurate and detailed information compared with health care practitioners recording their impressions of patient experiences. Well-validated patient friendly measures are recommended when they are available. When such are not readily available, face-valid, single-item numerical rating scales are effective instruments to document both treatment trial outcomes and cancer treatment side effects/toxicities.

Conclusion

The use of numerical rating scales are effective means of measuring symptoms caused by cancer, by cancer treatments, and/or alleviated by symptom control treatment approaches.

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Data availability

This is not applicable for this review manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mayo Clinic Rochester (Medical Oncology), Rochester, MN, USA

    Charles L. Loprinzi, Kathryn J. Ruddy, Aminah Jatoi & Elizabeth Cathcart-Rake

  2. Mayo Clinic Rochester (Division of Clinical Trials and Biostatistics), Rochester, MN, USA

    Paul Novotny, Jennifer Le-Rademacher & Minji Lee

  3. Mayo Clinic Rochester (Psychiatry & Psychology), Rochester, MN, USA

    Shawna L. Ehlers

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  1. Charles L. Loprinzi
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Contributions

Charles Loprinzi wrote the first draft of this manuscript, coordinated edits, and completed the last draft. All of the other authors provided substantial input into many drafts of this manuscript and approved the final version of such.

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Correspondence to Charles L. Loprinzi.

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There was no ethical committee review as this is a commentary-type manuscript, as opposed to a clinical trial. Mayo ethical committee does not require approval for the current manuscript.

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Competing interests

Dr. Loprinzi reports personal fees from PledPharma, personal fees from Disarm Therapeutics; personal fees from Asahi Kasei/Veloxis; personal fees from Metys Pharmaceuticals; personal fees from OnQuality; personal fees from Mitsubishi Tanabe; personal fees from NKMax, personal fees from Novartis; personal fees from HengRui; personal fees from Nuro Bio, personal fees from Osmol Therapeutics, Inc.; personal fees from Grunenthal; personal fees from Genentech outside the submitted work; personal fees from Bexion outside the submitted work; personal fees from Emmes Company outside the submitted work; personal fees from Pfizer outside the submitted work; and personal fees from Toray outside the submitted work. He also reports royalties from UpToDate. Dr. Ruddy reports royalties from UpToDate.

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Loprinzi, C.L., Novotny, P., Ruddy, K.J. et al. Measuring symptoms and toxicities: a 35-year experience. Support Care Cancer 31, 495 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-07958-2

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