Abstract
BackgroundCancer research has made great progress in the recent years. With the increasing number of options in diagnosis and therapy the implementation of tumorboards (TUBs) has become standard procedure in the treatment of cancer patients. Adherence tests on tumor board decisions are intended to enable quality assurance and enhancement for work in tumor boards in order to continuously optimize treatment options for cancer patients.MethodsSubject of this study was the adherence of the recommendations made in three of 14 tumorboards, which take place weekly in the Center for Integrated Oncology (CIO) at the University Hospital Bonn. In total, therapy recommendations of 3815 patient cases were checked on their implementation. A classification into four groups has been made according to the degree of implementation. A second classification followed regarding the reasons for differences between the recommendation and the therapy which the patient actually received.ResultsThe study showed that 80.1% of all recommendations in the three TUBs were implemented. 8.3% of all recommendations showed a deviance. Most important reasons for the deviances were patient wish (36.5%), patient death (26%) and doctoral decision, due to the patient’s comorbidities or side effects of the treatment (24.1%).Interestingly, deviance in all three tumor boards in total significantly decreased over time.ConclusionsAim of the study was to clarify the use of tumor boards and find approaches to make them more efficient. Based on the results efficiency might be optimized by increased consideration of patients` preferences, improved presentation of patient-related data, more detailed documentation and further structuring of the tumor board meetings.
Highlights
Cancer research has made great progress in the recent years
This program requires the implementation of so called tumorboards (TUBs). These meetings, known as multidisciplinary tumorboards (MDT) or tumor conferences, have become a standard in oncological patient care in the recent years all over the world [2,3,4]. These are regular meetings of medical specialists from different disciplines to evaluate a therapy recommendation, which is individual for every oncological patient presented at the TUB
It is the aim of a TUB to develop a therapy recommendation, which is evaluated in a multidisciplinary team and Hollunder et al BMC Cancer (2018) 18:936 individual for every oncological patient because the modern way of oncological therapy cannot be monodisciplinary anymore due to the complexity of cancer [5]
Summary
Cancer research has made great progress in the recent years. With the increasing number of options in diagnosis and therapy the implementation of tumorboards (TUBs) has become standard procedure in the treatment of cancer patients. Conditions for an interdisciplinary collaboration are written down in a certification program, which was developed by the German Cancer Society This program requires the implementation of so called tumorboards (TUBs). These meetings, known as multidisciplinary tumorboards (MDT) or tumor conferences, have become a standard in oncological patient care in the recent years all over the world [2,3,4]. These are regular meetings of medical specialists from different disciplines to evaluate a therapy recommendation, which is individual for every oncological patient presented at the TUB. The proven benefits for patients should give enough reasons for further development of the multidisciplinary performance provided by the TUBs [7]
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