Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34743011›Full record

ArticleJournal of pain and symptom management2022

Identification of Uncontrolled Symptoms in Cancer Patients Using Natural Language Processing.

Lisa DiMartino, Thomas Miano, Kathryn Wessell, Buck Bohac, Laura C Hanson

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of pain and symptom management, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
17citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
3.5field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

17 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. A systematic review of the assessment model for palliative care needs in cancer patients.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026
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  12. CACER: Clinical concept Annotations for Cancer Events and Relations.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2024
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  14. Ethical issues in pain and palliation.Current opinion in anaesthesiology · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Lisa DiMartinoRTI International, Translational Health Sciences Division (L.D.), Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. Electronic address: ldimartino@rti.org.
Thomas MianoRTI International, Center for Data Science (T.M.), Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
Kathryn WessellCecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (K.W., L.C.H.), Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Buck BohacNorth Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.B.), Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Laura C HansonCecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (K.W., L.C.H.), Chapel Hill, NC, USA; Division of Geriatric Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (L.C.H.), Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · USRTI International · US

Funding

Re-Entry Supplement: Investigation of Oral Microbial Enzymes for the Detection and Treatment of Periodontal DiseaseUL1TR002489 · NCATS · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · PI BUSE, JOHN BERNARD, SHAHEEN, NICHOLAS J · 2018 to 2022
$48.6M
NCATS NIH HHS UL1 TR002489
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

contextFor patients with cancer, uncontrolled pain and other symptoms are the leading cause of unplanned hospitalizations. Early access to specialty palliative care (PC) is effective to reduce symptom burden, but more efficient approaches are needed for rapid identification and referral. Information on symptom burden largely exists in free-text notes, limiting its utility as a trigger for best practice alerts or automated referrals.

objectivesTo evaluate whether natural language processing (NLP) can be used to identify uncontrolled symptoms (pain, dyspnea, or nausea/vomiting) in the electronic health record (EHR) among hospitalized cancer patients with advanced disease.

methodsThe dataset included 1,644 hospitalization encounters for cancer patients admitted from 1/2017 -6/2019. We randomly sampled 296 encounters, which included 15,580 clinical notes. We manually reviewed the notes and recorded symptom severity. The primary endpoint was an indicator for whether a symptom was labeled as "controlled" (none, mild, not reported) or as "uncontrolled" (moderate or severe). We randomly split the data into training and test sets and used the Random Forest algorithm to evaluate final model performance.

resultsOur models predicted presence of an uncontrolled symptom with the following performance: pain with 61% accuracy, 69% sensitivity, and 46% specificity (F1: 69.5); nausea/vomiting with 68% accuracy, 21% sensitivity, and 90% specificity (F1: 29.4); and dyspnea with 80% accuracy, 22% sensitivity, and 88% specificity (F1: 21.1).

conclusionThis study demonstrated initial feasibility of using NLP to identify hospitalized cancer patients with uncontrolled symptoms. Further model development is needed before these algorithms could be implemented to trigger early access to PC.

Indexed as

Natural Language ProcessingNeoplasmsDyspneaElectronic Health RecordsHumansNauseaPainVomitingCancer symptomselectronic health recordmachine learningnatural language processingpalliative care

Identifiers

PMID34743011
PMCPMC8930509
OpenAlexW3214260988

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.