Patient-reported Outcome Measures in Metastatic Urinary Cancers

Abstract

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have widely been used to assess treatment-related symptoms in clinical trials and provide insight into the patients' perspective during treatment. This mini-review sought to outline the benefits of measuring patient-reported outcomes, describe the most common measures used in recent pivotal studies in metastatic urinary cancers, and summarize the main findings published in the last 2 yr. In general, European Organization for Research and Treatment Cancer QLQC30 and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy were the most common PROMs used in these trials. PROMs provided important information concerning patients' quality of life and symptom burden during treatment, including insight into how these drugs may be tolerated in real-world clinical circumstances; however, many still do not assess patients' social and emotional experiences. Based on this mini-review, the combination of a symptomatic toxicity scale and validated quality of life measure represents a reliable strategy to assess patient perspectives during treatment. PATIENT SUMMARY: In this mini-review on patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs), we explored data from recent pivotal studies in metastatic urinary cancer. We found that all recent clinical trials in metastatic urinary cancers assessed patient-reported outcomes, primarily through the use of quality of life measures. We recommend the use of both a symptomatic toxicity scale and a quality of life scale to evaluate PROMs.

Keywords: Patient-reported outcomes; Prostate cancer; Quality of life; Renal cell carcinoma; Urothelial carcinoma.