Validation of a Patient-Reported Outcome Measure for Moist Desquamation among Breast Radiotherapy Patients

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Radiotherapy
• Patient-Reported Outcomes

Background:

• Increasing interest in patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures for enhancing patient quality of life and guiding clinical interventions.
• PROs are valuable in both clinical practice and research settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate an acute breast skin toxicity PRO measure in a diverse patient population undergoing radiation therapy.
• To assess the reliability of a PRO tool for monitoring side effects during and after treatment.

Main Methods:

• Prospective study involving 134 women undergoing adjuvant breast radiotherapy (RT) from August 2018 to September 2019.
• Patients completed serial PRO measures and underwent skin assessments by trained radiation therapists.
• Comparison of PRO-reported moist desquamation (MD) in the infra-mammary fold (IMF) with staff assessments.

Main Results:

• High patient compliance (92.5%) for post-RT skin assessments.
• The PRO measure demonstrated high sensitivity (86.5%) and good specificity (79.4%) for detecting MD in the IMF.
• A moderate correlation (rho = 0.61, p < 0.001) was found between PRO-reported and staff-assessed peak MD severity.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully validates a novel PRO measure for monitoring infra-mammary fold moist desquamation in women receiving breast radiotherapy.
• This validated PRO tool can aid in the timely identification and management of radiation-induced skin toxicity.