Guideline adherence of tumor board recommendations in lung cancer and transfer into clinical practice

Evaluating patients and treatment decisions in a multidisciplinary tumor board has led to better quality of care and longer survival in cancer patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate tumor board recommendations for thoracic oncology patients regarding guideline adherence and transferal of recommendations into clinical practice.

We evaluated tumor board recommendations of the thoracic oncology tumor board at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Hospital Munich between 2014 and 2016. We compared patient characteristics between guideline-adherent and non-guideline-adherent recommendations, as well as between transferred and non-transferred recommendations. We used multivariate logistic regression models to evaluate factors associated with guideline adherence.

Over 90% of recommendations by the tumor board were either adherent to the guidelines (75.5%) or over fulfilling guidelines (15.6%). Almost 90% of recommendations were transferred to clinical practice. If a recommendation was not according to the guidelines, the reason was mostly associated with the general condition (age, Charlson comorbidity index, ECOG) of the patient or due to the patients' request. Surprisingly, sex also had a significant influence on the guideline adherence of recommendations, with females being more likely to get recommendations not according to the guidelines.

In conclusion, the results of this study are promising, as the guideline adherence of recommendations as well as the transferal of recommendations into clinical practice were high. In the future, a special focus should be put on fragile patients as well as female patients.