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C. Miaskowski



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    ORAL 15 - Outcome Management in Lung Cancer Patients (ID 113)

    • Event: WCLC 2015
    • Type: Oral Session
    • Track: Nursing and Allied Professionals
    • Presentations: 1
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      ORAL15.01 - Changes in Symptom Occurrence Rates from Before Through 12 Months Following Lung Cancer Surgery (ID 2877)

      16:45 - 18:15  |  Author(s): C. Miaskowski

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background:
      Knowledge about how symptoms change following lung cancer surgery is important. Patients want information about the usual course of recovery including information about when they need to contact their clinician if symptoms persist. To our knowledge, only three studies have evaluated the occurrence of symptoms in patients prior to and following lung cancer surgery. The purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in symptom occurrence from the preoperative period to 1 year after surgery using a multidimensional symptom assessment scale (i.e., Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS).

      Methods:
      Patients were recruited from three university hospitals in Norway. They completed a number of self-report questionnaires prior to and again at 1, 5, 9, and 12 months following surgery. The questionnaires provided information on demographic and clinical characteristics as well as on symptoms. Patients’ medical records were reviewed for disease and treatment information. Descriptive statistics were used to present demographic and clinical characteristics. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the total number of symptoms across the 5 assessments.

      Results:
      At 12 months after surgery, the sample consisted of 113 (58%) men and 81 (43%) women who had a mean age of 66 years (SD 8.1, range 30 to 86). Findings from the ANOVA demonstrated significant changes in total number of symptoms over time. Compared to the preoperative assessment ( =8.7 + 6.8), patients reported a higher number of symptoms at 1 month ( =12.4 + 6.3), 5 months ( =10.2 + 6.6), 9 months ( =9.3 + 7.0), and 12 months ( =10.6 + 7.2). Post hoc contrasts found no differences in the number of symptoms at the 5, 9, and 12 month assessments. The occurrence of the five of the most frequent symptoms (i.e., pain, lack of energy, shortness of breath (SOB), feeling drowsy, worrying) increased significantly from before to one month after surgery and then decreased at 5 months. At 5 and 12 months, 78% of the patients reported SOB. Lack of energy was reported by 70.8% and 66.5% of the patients at 5 and 12 months, respectively. Forty-seven percent of the patients reported worrying and 65% of the patients reported drowsiness at the 5 and 12 month assessments. Finally, the occurrence of pain decreased from 56% at 5 months to 49% at 12 months. Cough and difficulty sleeping persisted over the first five months of the study. From 5 months to 12 months, 51% continued to report difficulty sleeping. The occurrence of cough was reduced from 60% at 5 months to 54% at 12 months.

      Conclusion:
      Findings from this study suggest that patients experience a high number of symptoms for up to 12 months after lung cancer surgery. The reduction in symptom burden is relatively modest from 5 to 12 months. These findings can be used to educate patients about the course of postoperative recovery after lung surgery. In addition, clinicians need to assess for these symptoms and develop effective interventions to improve symptom management for this vulnerable group of patients.

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