Measuring patient reported outcomes in brachytherapy: Why we should do it and more importantly how

As the treatment for cancer improves and advances are made, the clinical focus is often on treatment response and survival. However, these are not the only factors which are important to patients. More patients are living longer after cancer treatment and therefore it is important that we can describe not only the treatment to patients but also what their life will be like during and after treatment. Patient reported outcomes (PROs) allow us to describe these. Although there are a range of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) available to the clinician to assess these, the use of them in many areas of brachytherapy lags behind ideal levels. Brachytherapy has many features that differ to external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) yet the assessment of quality of life during and after treatment is much more scarce than EBRT. Brachytherapy is often used in the setting of organ preservation or in place of radical surgery, yet there is a paucity of quality of life data comparing the different treatment modalities. This review article will aim to elaborate on the evidence that exists in the use of specific PROMs within prostate, breast and gynaecologic cancers and describe the development of a novel PROMs approach in rectal brachytherapy which aims to identify and resolve symptoms at an early stage.