[Supportive care in oncology]

It is extremely important to deliver treatments, both in medical oncology and in radiation oncology, in compliance with the due dose intensity, in order to achieve the best results in terms of clinical response and local control and, often, also in terms of survival. Supportive care is one of the tools for the achievement of this goal, permitting the delivery of aggressive therapies and the improvement of Quality of Life. It is the aim of the Tsonc study to evaluate what the main therapeutic trend is, on the ground of a survey performed in 105 medical oncology, radiation oncology, and haematology centres. For this assessment the WHO/INH and RTOG common toxicity criteria were adopted, even knowing that these score systems had been developed for reporting acute/subacute toxicity and not to choose the therapeutic approach. However, these scales give us the possibility to refer to highly validated systems and provide participants with a common language. Thirty-two items of toxicity were listed, and each item included 2 to 4 degrees of severity so to report supportive care accordingly. The present paper reports the criteria of choice of the scales and symptoms and the schedule of the queries.