Electronic Patient Reported Outcome (ePRO) Measures in Patients with Soft Tissue Sarcoma (STS) Receiving Palliative Treatment

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Therapeutic options for advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS) are limited. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL), along with traditional outcome parameters such as tumor control and toxicity, is one of the most important endpoints for palliative STS treatment. The PazoQoL prospective, randomized, controlled, multicenter study (EudraCT number 2017-003382-10, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT0373575) was designed to assess the impact of treatment on HRQoL and patient-reported outcomes. Although the study had to be terminated early due to the pandemic, some valuable results were collected on the continuous recording of symptoms over a 9-week period and on patient satisfaction with therapy. Our findings could be translated into clinical practice without much effort and outside of a trial. ABSTRACT: The PazoQoL prospective, randomized, controlled, multicenter study was designed to continuously assess global health related quality of life (HRQoL) during treatment with pazopanib or physician-preferred chemotherapy over a 9-week period. The questionnaires were completed by the patients at home with great reliability during this time period. Continuous electronic patient reported outcome (ePRO) enabled early detection of the onset of deterioration and timely initiation of countermeasures. The Cancer Therapy Satisfaction Questionnaire (CTSQ) showed high interindividual variability and decline over a 9-week period, whereas the Time Trade-off (TTO) proved to be an efficient method for assessing individual benefit from cancer therapy. In our cohort, the TTO clearly demonstrated that the prolongation of life and the side effect profile of continued therapy were not as satisfactory as expected by patients when starting a new therapy. Although the study had to be stopped early due to the pandemic, our findings could translate into clinical practice without much effort and outside of a trial.