Development of a Patient-Reported Symptom Item Bank for Patients with Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Malignancies: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background Patients with hepatobiliary or pancreatic cancers often experience severe symptoms, resulting in a sharp decline in functioning, poor quality of life, and increased mortality risk. Early and effective management of symptoms allows a better quality of life and reduced mortality, depending on the selection of appropriate assessment of specific symptoms for a defined purpose. We aimed to develop a symptom measurement item bank for hepatobiliary or pancreatic cancers. Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was applied to organize this systematic review. The articles validated patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for hepatobiliary or pancreatic cancer and published before December 2021 were retrieved from the Web of Science, PubMed, Embase databases and Cochrane Library. Items from the existing PROMs were selected and classified into different patient-reported symptoms based on the concepts and specific underlying constructs of the objects measured. Results Sixteen unique PROMs were identified across the 29 eligible studies included in our analysis. Items from the literature review (14 PROMs with 421 items for which information was obtained) were selected and classified. As a result of this study, we developed a symptom item bank with 40 patient-reported symptoms and 229 assessment items for hepatobiliary or pancreatic cancer, and fatigue, pain and nausea were the most common symptom items. Conclusion We developed an item bank to assess the patient-reported symptoms of hepatobiliary or pancreatic cancer. This item bank could allow researchers to select appropriate measures of symptom and provide a basis for the development of a single-item symptom-measurement system.

The Mediating Effect of Resilience on the Relationship Between Symptom Burden and Anxiety/Depression Among Chinese Patients with Primary Liver Cancer After Liver Resection

“…19 A systematic review aimed to create an item bank of patient-reported symptoms for patients with hepatobiliary or pancreatic malignancies found that 40 self-reported symptoms were present following hepatectomy. 20 A survey on the symptom burden of 160 Chinese patients with PLC who underwent liver resection showed that 100% had fatigue, pain, decreased appetite, dry mouth, and bloating. 21 Of the 19 symptoms evaluated on the MD Anderson Symptom Inventory (MDASI) and the Symptom Module specific to Primary Liver Cancer (TSM-PLC) scales, 11 exhibited a prevalence exceeding 50%, with 5 demonstrating a severity score of ≥ 4.…”