Quality of systemic cancer therapy in routine care: What are we measuring?

Abstract

249 Background: While clinical trials provide efficacy and early safety information regarding systemic cancer therapy (ST), most cancer patients who receive ST are treated outside clinical trials. We performed a systematic review of studies that have evaluated the quality of ST in routine practice to summarize the literature and define knowledge gaps across five quality domains – access, treatment delivery, toxicity, safety and outcome. Methods: We searched MEDLINE using a combination of terms pertaining to ST, such as “chemotherapy” with keywords related to healthcare quality for articles published in English from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2010. Articles were included if they were based on original studies that examined quality of ST among adult patients from a population perspective (defined as multiple institutions). Study information was abstracted using a standardized form. Summary statistics were used to describe the results. Results: Our search identified 179 articles. The number of studies published each year increased over time from nine studies in 2000 to 30 in 2010. Most studies were conducted in the United States (58%) in either colorectal (31%) or breast cancers (27%) and focused on adjuvant intent cytotoxic chemotherapy (81%). Majority of the studies retrospectively (92%) identified patients from cancer registries (83%) and used either billing data (64%) or information in the registry itself (27%) for treatment identification. 66% of the studies evaluated a single quality domain, whereas the remaining articles assessed two or more domains. No study was found that examined safety from a population perspective. Access was the most frequently evaluated domain (77%) whereas treatment delivery was the least examined (12%). Treatment toxicity and outcome were evaluated in 21% and 31% of studies, respectively. Among studies that assessed outcome of ST, most evaluated patient specific outcomes such as survival (93%) although a few (13%) examined system level outcomes such as cost. Conclusions: Majority of studies evaluating quality of ST have focused on access to cytotoxic chemotherapy in early stage disease. Further studies focusing on other aspects of quality and in different clinical settings are needed.