Identifying Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) for Routine Surveillance of Physical and Emotional Symptoms in Head and Neck Cancer Populations: A Systematic Review

Sheilla de Oliveira Faria; Gillian Hurwitz; Jaemin Kim; Jacqueline Liberty; Kimberly Orchard; Geoffrey Liu; Lisa Barbera; Doris Howell

doi:10.3390/jcm10184162

Identifying Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) for Routine Surveillance of Physical and Emotional Symptoms in Head and Neck Cancer Populations: A Systematic Review

J Clin Med. 2021 Sep 15;10(18):4162. doi: 10.3390/jcm10184162.

Authors

Sheilla de Oliveira Faria^{1

2

3}, Gillian Hurwitz⁴, Jaemin Kim⁴, Jacqueline Liberty⁴, Kimberly Orchard⁴, Geoffrey Liu^{5

6

7

8}, Lisa Barbera⁹, Doris Howell^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 01246-903, Brazil.
² Department of Supportive Care, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, ON M5G 2M9, Canada.
³ Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1P8, Canada.
⁴ Cancer Care Ontario, Toronto, ON M5G 2L7, Canada.
⁵ Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, ON M5G 2M9, Canada.
⁶ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.
⁷ Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada.
⁸ Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada.
⁹ Tom Baker Cancer Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada.

Abstract

The aims of this review were to identify symptoms experienced by head and neck cancer (HNC) patients and their prevalence, as well as to compare symptom coverage identified in HNC specific patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Searches of Ovid Medline, Embase, PsychInfo, and CINAHL were conducted to identify studies. The search revealed 4569 unique articles and identified 115 eligible studies. The prevalence of reported symptoms was highly variable among included studies. Variability in sample size, timing of the assessments, and the use of different measures was noted across studies. Content mapping of commonly used PROMs showed variability and poor capture of prevalent symptoms, even though validation studies confirmed satisfactory reliability and validity. This suggests limitations of some of the tools in providing an accurate and comprehensive picture of the patient's symptoms and problems.

Keywords: adult; cancer survivors; head and neck cancer; patient-reported measures; patient-reported outcome; side effects; symptoms.

Publication types

Review