Background: There has been no single standard-of-care treatment of patients with advanced/metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (STS). This study was designed to understand patient and oncologist preferences in the advanced/metastatic setting.
Methods: Adult patients diagnosed with STS and oncologists treating patients with STS completed discrete choice experiment surveys. Study participants chose between pairs of hypothetical treatment profiles for advanced STS characterized by varying levels of overall survival (14, 20, or 26 months), progression-free survival (3, 5, or 7 months), objective tumor response rate (12, 18, or 26%), risk of hospitalization due to side effects (12, 30, or 46%), and days/month to administer treatment (1, 2, or 4 days). A hierarchical Bayes model was used to estimate preferences and relative importance of attributes.
Results: Seventy-six patients (23.7% male, mean age 52.8 years) and 160 oncologists (73.8% male, mean 16.9 years in practice) completed the surveys. Among patients, overall survival had the highest relative importance (39.5%, standard deviation [SD] 18.2%), followed by response rate (21.2%, SD 10.4%), and hospitalization (19.8%, SD 12.5%). Among oncologists, overall survival had the highest relative importance (44.6%, SD 16.0%), followed by hospitalization (18.4%, SD 8.3%).
Conclusions: Both patients with STS and oncologists preferred a treatment that maximizes the life of patients while avoiding hospitalizations.