Background: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a debilitating and dose-limiting complication of cancer treatment. Thus far, the impact of CIPN has not been studied in a systematic clinimetric manner. The objective of the study was to select outcome measures for CIPN evaluation and to establish their validity and reproducibility in a cross-sectional multicenter study. Patients and methods:After literature review and a consensus meeting among experts, face/content validity were obtained for the following selected scales: the National Cancer Institute-Common Toxicity Criteria (NCI-CTC), the Total Neuropathy Score clinical version (TNSc), the modified Inflammatory Neuropathy Cause and Treatment (INCAT) group sensory sumscore (mISS), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30, and CIPN20 quality-of-life measures. A total of 281 patients with stable CIPN were examined. Validity (correlation) and reliability studies were carried out.Results: Good inter-/intra-observer scores were obtained for the TNSc, mISS, and NCI-CTC sensory/motor subscales. Test-retest values were also good for the EORTC QLQ-C30 and CIPN20. Acceptable validity scores were obtained through the correlation among the measures. Conclusion:Good validity and reliability scores were demonstrated for the set of selected impairment and quality-of-life outcome measures in CIPN. Future studies are planned to investigate the responsiveness aspects of these measures.

The high response rate of 47% (95% CI 31% to 61%) confirms that TMZ chemotherapy is a valid option in the treatment of progressive LGG. The present preliminary results seem interesting and warrant further evaluation of TMZ clinical activity in a larger series of progressive LGG.

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This study provides Class II evidence that vitamin E supplementation significantly reduces the relative risk of developing signs or symptoms of neurotoxicity (relative risk = 0.14) (95% confidence interval = 0.02-1.00, p < 0.05).