Thomas LeBlanc

Patients with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) often experience intensive medical care at the end of life (EOL), including high rates of hospitalizations and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions. Despite this, studies examining code status transitions are lacking. We conducted a mixed-methods study of 200 patients with high-risk AML enrolled in supportive care studies at Massachusetts General Hospital between 2014 and 2021. We defined high-risk AML as relapsed/refractory or diagnosis at age ≥60. We used a consensus-driven medical record review to characterize code status transitions. At diagnosis, 86.0% (172/200) of patients were "full code" (38.5% presumed, 47.5% confirmed) and 8.5% had restrictions on life-sustaining therapies. Overall, 57.0% of patients experienced a transition during the study period. The median time from the last transition to death was 2 days (range, 0-350). Most final transitions (71.1%) were to comfort measures near EOL; only 60.5% of patients participated in these last transitions. We identified 3 conversation types leading to transitions: informative conversations focusing on futility after clinical deterioration (51.0%), anticipatory conversations at the time of acute deterioration (32.2%), and preemptive conversations (15.6%) before deterioration. Younger age (B = 0.04; P = .002) and informative conversations (B = -2.79; P < .001) were associated with shorter time from last transition to death. Over two-thirds of patients were "presumed full code" at diagnosis of high-risk AML, and most experienced code status transitions focused on the futility of continuing life-sustaining therapies near EOL. These results suggest that goals-of-care discussions occur late in the illness course for patients with AML and warrant interventions to increase earlier discussions regarding EOL preferences.

With sophisticated mobile and wearable technologies available, there has been interest in leveraging these devices to help gather and analyze patient-generated health data (PGHD). This information could be used to better address health concerns, aid in treatment decision-making, and guide interventional strategies to improve outcomes. Among PGHD, electronic patient-reported outcomes, direct reports of patient experience usually collected via validated scales and questionnaires, are increasingly integrated into routine clinical practice to monitor patient status. Electronic patient-reported outcomes have been shown to improve outcomes, including symptom control, quality of life, and overall survival, in several clinical trials. Electronic patient-reported outcome collection is now being implemented across broader clinical practice settings but with limited evaluation of impact thus far. Wearable devices and mobile apps provide opportunities to collect additional PGHD, including continuous physiologic measures, and to generate algorithms with which to monitor patients with cancer and guide interventions. In this article, we discuss several topics related to PGHD and technology, including electronic patient-reported outcomes, mobile apps, and wearable devices and how their introduction into oncology care has the potential to improve the collection and use of PGHD in the future. We also highlight the challenges and future directions needed for mobile and wearable technologies to provide meaningful information that can be acted upon and thus can improve oncologic care.

<jats:p> 7032 </jats:p><jats:p> Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted cancer care, potentially exacerbating patients’ distress levels. Patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing HSCT may be especially vulnerable to this pandemic stress given their well-documented heightened psychological distress and impaired quality of life (QOL). However, the association of the COVID-19 pandemic with distress and QOL is not well understood. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data from 205 patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing HSCT who were enrolled in a multi-site, randomized supportive care trial. We compared baseline pre-HSCT distress (depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] symptoms) and QOL between participants enrolled pre-COVID-19 (i.e., 03/2019-01/2020) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., 03/2020-01/2021). We used the Hospital Anxiety &amp; Depression Scale, PTSD Checklist, and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Bone Marrow Transplant to assess symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, as well as QOL respectively. We used regression models adjusting for age, gender, race, relationship status, and cancer diagnosis to examine the relationship between the period of enrollment and patient-reported distress and QOL. Results: Prior to COVID-19, 124 participants enrolled, and 81 participants enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic. The two cohorts had similar baseline demographic and disease risk factors. Most participants were non-Hispanic (n = 185; 90.2%), White (n = 138; 86.3%), and female (n = 131; 64.5%) with a mean (SD) age of 54.9 (11.7) years. In multivariate regression models, enrollment during COVID-19 was not associated with pre-HSCT depression (B = 0.004; 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.03; p = 0.73), anxiety (B = 0.008; 95% CI, -0.01 to 0.03; p = 0.44), PTSD (B = 0.004; 95% CI, -0.004 to 0.01; p = 0.35) symptoms or QOL (B = -0.003; 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.01; p = 0.68). Conclusions: Contrary to the widespread notion that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened distress in patients with cancer, we found no differences in pre-HSCT distress or QOL in patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing HSCT prior to or during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings highlight the need to comprehensively explore the multifactorial causes (e.g., illness experience, treatment burden) of distress and QOL deficits in HSCT recipients irrespective of the COVID-19 pandemic. </jats:p>

BACKGROUND: Several prognostic tools have been developed to aid clinicians in survival prediction. However, changes in symptoms are rarely included in established prognostic systems. We aimed to investigate the influence of changes in symptoms and quality of life (QOL) on survival time in outpatients with advanced cancer. METHODS: Study subjects included a subgroup of those with longitudinal symptom and QOL data within a larger, single-site parent study. We assessed patients' symptoms and QOL at enrollment and follow-up at an approximately 3-month interval. Patients' symptoms were evaluated by the Korean version of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (K-ESAS). QOL was checked by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30). Participants were categorized into three groups by changes in symptoms or QOL. These groups were: improved (having at least a one level of improvement in the response scale), stable (no change), or worsened (at least a one level of worsening in the scale). We compared survival time in the improved plus stable vs. worsened groups, using a log-rank test. RESULTS: We analyzed 60 patients, with a median survival time of 346 days. In the Worsened group, depression (P<0.01) and sleep disturbance (P<0.01) by K-ESAS, and dyspnea (P<0.03) per the EORTC QLQ-C30, were statistically significantly related to shorter survival time compared to 'improved and stable' group. There was no relationship between changes in other symptoms, overall QOL, and survival. CONCLUSIONS: Longitudinal assessment of depression, sleep disturbance and dyspnea may be useful in prognostication of patients with advanced cancer. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings with more consecutive assessments in diverse populations.