Abstract PO3-10-10: Are we adequately integrating patient reported outcomes in breast cancer clinical trials?
Authors: Yadav Rina, Zhengyan Huang, Jessica Moss, Garima Gupta
Journal: Cancer Research (2024)

Abstract Background: Integrating patient reported outcomes (PROs) in cancer care enhances clinical outcomes and creates a paradigm shift in providing patient-centered care. Several studies performed in the past 15 years have demonstrated that systematic monitoring of patients using PROs through surveys improve patient-clinician communication, clinician awareness of symptoms, symptom management, patient satisfaction, quality of life, and overall survival. There has been uncertainty over the type of PRO system to implement in cancer care, how to evaluate PRO in clinical trials, and how to compare this to the clinician common terminology criteria for adverse events (CTCAE). The PRO concept was first introduced in 1975 with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life (QoL) survey. In May 2018, the National Cancer Institute established the PRO-CTCAE to be utilized for cancer patients to report and grade their treatment related adverse events, like that of clinician reported CTCAE. The goal of our study was to evaluate frequency of PRO incorporation in phase III breast cancer clinical trials. Methods: New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Lancet were systematically searched to identify phase III breast cancer clinical trials published between January 2018 and June 2023. A total of 113 phase III studies were identified, 87 of which had reported protocols. Studies that did not demonstrate protocols on these search engines were not included in the review. Of these 87 clinical trials, 36 studies documented evaluation of PRO. These studies were segregated by year of publication. For each year, the number of total phase III breast cancer clinical trials that were published were compared to those that were published and evaluated PRO. A percentage was generated and allowed for a longitudinal trend to be analyzed over a 5-year period to assess if there was improved frequency of PRO integration into breast cancer clinical trials. Summary statistics were calculated using SAS 9.4. Results: 36 of 113 trials demonstrated PRO use and 26 utilized EORTC-QoL, 1 used PRO-CTCAE, and 9 used another measure of PRO assessment within their study protocol (such as FACT-B and PHQ-9. Additionally, in 2018, 33% of published breast cancer studies included PRO data. Since then, there have been fluctuations in breast cancer studies collecting PRO; 2019: 33%, 2020: 47%, 2021: 43%, 2022: 73%, and since the start of 2023: 9%. Conclusions: Our data suggests a trend towards improvement in frequency of PRO data collection in breast cancer clinical trials over the past 5 years, exemplified by the marked increase in 2022. There remains a need to incorporate PROs in clinical trials and routine care to improve patient experience and provide patient-centered care. Citation Format: Yadav Rina, Zhengyan Huang, Jessica Moss, Garima Gupta. Are we adequately integrating patient reported outcomes in breast cancer clinical trials? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO3-10-10.