Patient-reported gastrointestinal outcomes in patients with anal cancer.

Abstract

4055 Background: Among patients with anal cancer, chemoradiotherapy tends to offer an excellent prognosis but is often associated with undesirable toxicities that diminish quality of life. We sought to quantify the gastrointestinal-related patient-reported outcomes (PROs) of anal cancer patients receiving chemoradiotherapy in order to improve patient-physician communication and shared decision making. Methods: We prospectively followed patients with non-metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal who received definitive chemoradiotherapy. Patients reported outcomes were collected using the bowel subdomain of the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) questionnaire before treatment and at 4 subsequent timepoints. We used descriptive statistics to summarize the patients’ characteristics and EPIC scores, then used the paired Wilcoxon test to compare EPIC scores at different timepoints. Results: The study included 21 patients (16 women and 5 men), whose median age was 57 years. Most patients (52%) had T2, and either N0 (38%) or N1 (43%) disease. Most patients (91%) received standard of care chemoradiotherapy. Compared with the patients’ median overall summary score at baseline (66), their median score at 1 week (82) was significantly higher (p = 0.009), whereas their median score at 5 weeks (54) was significantly lower (p = 0.025). However, the patients’ median overall summary score at baseline and at 3 months did not differ significantly (p = 0.919). Three months after radiotherapy, most patients (73%) reported rarely or never having bloody stools, and most (82%) reported rarely or never being bothered by bloody stools. Overall, EPIC scores show initial improvement of all domains, followed by some worsening of symptoms before returning to baseline levels. Conclusions: Anal cancer patients’ gastrointestinal-related PROs tend to fluctuate during radiotherapy but return to baseline by 3 months, at which time most patients report few or no residual side effects. Our data provide a clear timeline of gastrointestinal acute toxicity using sequential PRO measurements that will improve patient-physician communication regarding expectations for cancer treatment and help in shared decision making.