Assessment tools for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy: a narrative review of clinician, patient-reported,...

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a common side effect of chemotherapy, affecting motor, sensory, and autonomic function. Accurate assessment is important during treatment, when CIPN may necessitate dose reductions or discontinuation, and after treatment, as chronic CIPN can greatly impact quality of life and safety in cancer survivorship. Measurement tools can include subjective measures, including clinician-based grading scales or patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), and objective measures. This review aimed to summarize current CIPN assessment tools, highlighting characteristics such as feasibility, minimum clinically important differences (MCIDs), validity and reliability to allow for comparison and selection of tools by clinicians and researchers.

Following the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles methodology guidelines, 2 investigators performed a comprehensive literature search using predefined search terms relating to CIPN measurement. Additional papers were identified through a search of prior systematic reviews and tracing back references from key articles. Data were extracted from source papers and any available appendices.

We identified 3 clinician-based grading scales, 20 PROMs, and 8 objective measurement tools. While the majority of tools have been validated for neuropathy, a minority of them have established MCIDs and validation in CIPN-specific populations.

Tool selection should align with the specific needs of clinicians and researchers. Instruments that are valid, reliable, and assess multiple CIPN domains are recommended. Further research is needed to validate many of these tools in CIPN-specific populations and to determine their MCIDs.