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Background: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is one of the most common side effects of cancer and cancer treatment. Being able to accurately screen for and assess CRF will improve access to and prescriptions for interventions. Valid and reliable measures to screen for and assess CRF need to be identified. Purpose: To identify and recommend reliable, valid, and clinically useful tools to screen for and assess CRF among those treated for cancer. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted to assess the published psychometric properties and clinical feasibility of each method identified. Task force members independently reviewed each measure using the Cancer EDGE Rating Form. Results: Review of 136 studies resulted in recommendations for 14 questionnaires. Five unidimensional and 9 multidimensional questionnaires are recommended by the Oncology EDGE Task Force. Conclusion: The 10-point Numeric Rating Scale for Fatigue is best as a screening tool, whereas the Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory is a highly recommended multidimensional tool. Ease of screening can promote referral for interventions, whereas thorough assessment drives appropriate interventions.

Background Cancer rehabilitation research has accelerated over the last decade. However, closer examination of the published literature reveals that the majority of this work has focused on psychological interventions and cognitive and behavioral therapies. Recent initiatives have aggregated expert consensus around research priorities, highlighting a dearth in research regarding measurement of and interventions for physical function. Increasingly loud calls for the need to address the myriad of physical functional impairments that develop in people living with and beyond cancer have been published in the literature. A detailed survey of the landscape of published research has not been reported to our knowledge. Purpose This scoping review systematically identified literature published between 2008 and 2018 related to the screening, assessment, and interventions associated with physical function in people living with and beyond cancer. Data Sources PubMed and CINAHL were searched up to September 2018. Study Selection Study selection included articles of all levels of evidence on any disease stage and population. A total of 11,483 articles were screened for eligibility, 2507 full-text articles were reviewed, and 1055 articles were selected for final inclusion and extraction. Data Extraction Seven reviewers recorded type of cancer, disease stage, age of participants, phase of treatment, time since diagnosis, application to physical function, study design, impairments related to physical function, and measurement instruments used. Data Synthesis Approximately one-third of the articles included patients with various cancer diagnoses (30.3%), whereas the rest focused on a single cancer, most commonly breast (24.8%). Most articles (77%) measured physical function following the completion of active cancer treatment with 64% representing the assessment domain. The most commonly used measures of physical function were the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Health Survey Questionnaire (29%) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Cancer 30 (21.5%). Limitations Studies not written in English, study protocols, conference abstracts, and unpublished data were excluded. Conclusions This review elucidated significant inconsistencies in the literature regarding language used to define physical function, measurement tools used to characterize function, and the use of those tools across the cancer treatment and survivorship trajectory. The findings suggested that physical function in cancer research is predominantly measured using general health-related quality-of-life tools rather than more precise functional assessment tools. Interdisciplinary and clinician-researcher collaborative efforts should be directed toward a unified definition and assessment of physical function.

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