Symptom Burden and Outcomes of Patients With Platinum Resistant/Refractory Recurrent Ovarian Cancer: A Reality Check

Abstract

Patients had a complex array of symptoms and significant symptom burden, which was commonly the reason for treatment. Although chemotherapy improved symptoms in about half of the patients, many did not benefit and progressed rapidly. Our findings support research into the use of patient reported outcome measures to document symptoms, adverse events, and subjective benefit, both in clinical trials and in clinical practice, in this patient population. Our findings highlight the need to develop prognostic models to better select patients for treatment, and this is an aim of stage 2 of the GCIG Symptom Benefit Study.

Development of the Measure of Ovarian Symptoms and Treatment Concerns: Aiming for Optimal Measurement of Patient-Reported Symptom Benefit With Chemotherapy for Symptomatic Ovarian Cancer

“…3 The key points for this article are (1) patients with platinum resistant/refractory recurrent ovarian cancer self-completed an HRQoL booklet before starting palliative chemotherapy (baseline) and (2) a subset of patients completed a structured interview.…”

“…14 This article uses baseline data from SRQ, QLQ-C30/OV28, and FACT-O/FOSI; data from the other time points and questionnaires are reported separately. 3,15 Optimality Criteria…”

“…‡All Patient characteristics and details of their symptom experience at baseline are given in the companion article. 3 Thirty women were approached for interviews, eight declined, and 22 were interviewed, at which point data saturation had been achieved. Two interviews were excluded because of poorquality audio recording.…”

“…The first aim is addressed in a companion article. 3 We address the second aim, defining ''optimal'' as best able to provide efficient and focused measurement of symptom benefit for use in clinical trial end-point analysis.…”

Symptom Experience and Self-rated Physical Functioning in Patients With Ovarian Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy

“…2,3 Although chemotherapy has been shown to improve symptoms in most platinum-sensitive patients, approximately half of platinum-resistant patients do not benefit. 4 It is shown that approximately 30% of patients previously treated with chemotherapy and/or surgery report disturbed sleep, fatigue, or numbness/tingling of moderate severity, whereas approximately 20% report back pain, feeling bloated, or constipation of at least moderate severity. 5 Moreover, cancer-related symptoms vary by cancer type, type of treatment, sex, and age and are reported to be associated with psychological distress and reduced quality of life.…”