Clinical trial NCT06022666: PATH Program for for Severely Frail or Cognitively Impaired Patients Scheduled for Cancer Surgery.
Official title: Application of the Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization (PATH) Program for Shared-decision Making for Severely Frail or Cognitively Impaired Patients Scheduled for Cancer Surgery: a Randomized Control Trial.
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Frailty
Oncology Problem
Cognitive Impairment
Keywords: frailty
cognitive impairment
cancer surgery
Lead sponsor: Nova Scotia Health Authority
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2023-09-05
Enrollment: 150
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 75
Standard ages: OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: This is a single center, non-blinded randomized control trial taking place at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital (QEII) in Nova Scotia. Patients are eligible if aged 75 and older scheduled for elective cancer surgery (proven cancer or highly suspicious cancer) and screened to have mild or greater frailty (with cognitive impairments) or moderate to greater frailty (with medical/physical conditions). Eligible participants will then be randomized to preoperative standard of care or geriatric assessment through the PATH clinic. Primary outcome will assess time spend at home at 6 months after the surgery.

Detailed description: At Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA), geriatric medicine colleagues developed a preoperative palliative and therapeutic harmonization (PATH) clinic with the following objectives:

1. Assess medical conditions, health trajectory, and baseline frailty.
2. Conduct an in-depth discussion with the patient (or their substitute decision maker) to review medical conditions and how frailty stage impacts decision-making about surgery.
3. Co-develop a care plan, including ways to optimize health.

The investigators have elaborated a single center randomized cohort trial for patients aged 75 and older, screened as severely frail or cognitively impaired scheduled for curative or palliative-intent surgery for bronchopulmonary, oropharyngeal, orthopaedic, gynaecological, breast, genitourinary or gastrointestinal cancers (proven or clinically highly suspicious cancer).

Patients enrolled in the trial will be randomized to standard of care preoperative assessment versus PATH geriatric care arm.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Patients must have a clinically highly suspicious or pathologically confirmed diagnosis of bronchopulmonary, oropharyngeal (including head and neck surgery), orthopaedic, gynaecological, breast, genitourinary or gastrointestinal cancer surgery.
2. Patients must be scheduled and consented for curative or palliative intent surgery.
3. Patients must be aged 75 or older.
4. Patients must be screened by the CFS to have:

4a. Mild or greater frailty (CFS equal or greater than 5) due to cognitive impairment.

4b. Moderate or greater frailty (CFS equal or greater than 6) due to medical/physical conditions.

5. Informed consent for participation must be received.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Patients cannot be a resident in a long-term care facility prior to the cancer diagnosis.
2. Urgent/ emergent cases are excluded.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Time spent at home 6 months following cancer surgery.
timeFrame: At 6 months postoperatively
measure: Preoperative factors associated with decreased proportion of time spent at home at 6 months.
timeFrame: At 6 months postoperatively
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Number of participants requiring home care utilization
timeFrame: Assessed from date of hospital discharge (from index surgery) to 6 months postoperatively.
measure: Number of participants experiencing death or development of persistent significant new disability.
timeFrame: Assessed from date of index surgery to 6 months postoperatively.
measure: Preoperative factors associated with increased home care utilization, death, or new onset disability.
timeFrame: Assessed up to 6 months postoperatively.
measure: Rate of change to a non-operative strategy
timeFrame: Assessed from date of randomization until documented confirmation that patient has opted for non surgical approach, assessed up to 6 months.
measure: Decision regret scores.
timeFrame: Assessed from date of hospital discharge (from index surgery) to 6 months postoperatively.
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Halifax
country: Canada
facility: QEII, Victoria General Hospital
state: Nova Scotia
Study officials:
affiliation: Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Center
name: Richard Spence, MD, FRCSC
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Chesney TR, Coburn N, Mahar AL, Davis LE, Zuk V, Zhao H, Hsu AT, Wright F, Haas B, Hallet J; Recovery After Surgical Therapy for Older Adults Research-Cancer (RESTORE-Cancer) Group. All-Cause and Cancer-Specific Death of Older Adults Following Surgery for Cancer. JAMA Surg. 2021 Jul 1;156(7):e211425. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2021.1425. Epub 2021 Jul 14.
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citation: Spence RT, Hirpara DH, Doshi S, Quereshy FA, Chadi SA. ASO Author Reflections: A Reductionist's Approach to Risk-Adjusted Predictions and Outcomes Assessment: Less is More. Ann Surg Oncol. 2021 May;28(5):2788-2789. doi: 10.1245/s10434-020-09284-x. Epub 2020 Nov 5. No abstract available.
citation: Spence RT, Hirpara DH, Doshi S, Quereshy FA, Chadi SA. Will My Patient Survive an Anastomotic Leak? Predicting Failure to Rescue Using the Modified Frailty Index. Ann Surg Oncol. 2021 May;28(5):2779-2787. doi: 10.1245/s10434-020-09221-y. Epub 2020 Oct 23.
citation: Theou O, Perez-Zepeda MU, van der Valk AM, Searle SD, Howlett SE, Rockwood K. A classification tree to assist with routine scoring of the Clinical Frailty Scale. Age Ageing. 2021 Jun 28;50(4):1406-1411. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afab006.
citation: Hall DE, Arya S, Schmid KK, Carlson MA, Lavedan P, Bailey TL, Purviance G, Bockman T, Lynch TG, Johanning JM. Association of a Frailty Screening Initiative With Postoperative Survival at 30, 180, and 365 Days. JAMA Surg. 2017 Mar 1;152(3):233-240. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2016.4219.
citation: Chesney TR, Haas B, Coburn N, Mahar AL, Davis LE, Zuk V, Zhao H, Wright F, Hsu AT, Hallet J. Association of frailty with long-term homecare utilization in older adults following cancer surgery: Retrospective population-based cohort study. Eur J Surg Oncol. 2021 Apr;47(4):888-895. doi: 10.1016/j.ejso.2020.09.009. Epub 2020 Sep 16.
citation: Moorhouse P, Mallery LH. Palliative and therapeutic harmonization: a model for appropriate decision-making in frail older adults. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2012 Dec;60(12):2326-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2012.04210.x. Epub 2012 Oct 30.
citation: Chesney TR, Haas B, Coburn NG, Mahar AL, Zuk V, Zhao H, Wright FC, Hsu AT, Hallet J; Recovery After Surgical Therapy for Older Adults Research-Cancer (RESTORE-Cancer) Group. Patient-Centered Time-at-Home Outcomes in Older Adults After Surgical Cancer Treatment. JAMA Surg. 2020 Nov 1;155(11):e203754. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2020.3754. Epub 2020 Nov 18.