Our findings suggest that treatment at HVF is associated with improved overall survival among stage III NSCLC patients receiving definitive CCRT, independent of academic affiliation. Further research is needed to determine whether or not efforts supporting centralization of radiotherapy at HVF will improve population-based survival, toxicities, and costs.
PORT is associated with improved overall survival in patients with incompletely resected stage II or III N0-2 NSCLC. The use of PORT for this population in more recent years has been declining. In the absence of randomized trials evaluating PORT utilization for this patient population, our findings strongly support the delivery of PORT in patients with incompletely resected NSCLC.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESRespondents were asked about familiarity, perceptions, and use of decision aids for clinically localized prostate cancer and trust in various professional societies in developing decision aids. The Pearson χ 2 test was used to test for bivariate associations between physician characteristics and outcomes. RESULTS Similar response rates were observed for radiation oncologists and urologists (44.0% vs 46.1%; P = .46). Although most respondents had some familiarity with decision aids, only 35.5% currently use a decision aid in clinic practice. The most commonly cited barriers to decision aid use included the perception that their ability to estimate the risk of recurrence was superior to that of decision aids (7.7% in those not using decision aids and 26.2% in those using decision aids; P < .001) and the concern that patients could not process information from a decision aid (7.6% in those not using decision aids and 23.7% in those using decision aids; P < .001). In assessing trust in decision aids established by various professional medical societies, specialists consistently reported trust in favor of their respective organizations, with 9.2% being very confident and 59.2% being moderately confident (P = .01).CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Use of decision aids among specialists treating patients with prostate cancer is relatively low. Efforts to address barriers to clinical implementation of decision aids may facilitate greater shared decision making for patients diagnosed as having prostate cancer.
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