Trial reportJournal of cancer survivorship : research and practice2024
Quality of life and symptom burden after rectal cancer surgery: a randomised controlled trial comparing patient-led versus standard follow-up.
Trial report in Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Patient-initiated follow-up in surgical specialties: meta-analysis and meta-regression.BJS open · 2026Pooled it
- Psychosocial Interventions for Patients Undergoing Gastrointestinal Cancer Surgery: A Systematic Review.Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness of survivorship programmes to enhance health-related quality of life of colorectal cancer survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Cost-Utility analysis of Patient-Led Follow-Up after Rectal Cancer Compared to Standard Follow-Up: A three-year follow-up of the FURCA Randomised Controlled Trial.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Article
- Functional outcomes in rectal cancer patients treated with immunotherapy and neoadjuvant therapy: a retrospective analysis.Langenbeck's archives of surgery · 2025Article
- The decline of male sexual activity and function after surgical treatment for rectal cancer.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2025Article
- Colorectal cancer follow-up after surgical resection since the COVID-19 pandemic: first steps towards out-of-hospital follow-up?ESMO real world data and digital oncology · 2024Article
- Missingness mechanisms and generalizability of patient reported outcome measures in colorectal cancer survivors - assessing the reasonableness of the "missing completely at random" assumption.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Variation in Follow-Up after Radical Cystectomy for Bladder Cancer-An Inventory Roundtable and Literature Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeAfter curatively intended rectal cancer (RC) surgery, new follow-up strategies are warranted, seeking more individualised care and targeting health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and functional outcomes. The FURCA trial aimed to investigate the effect of patient-led follow-up on HRQoL and symptom burden 3 years after surgery.
methodsRC patients from four Danish centres were randomised 1:1 to intervention (patient-led follow-up with patient education and self-referral to a specialist nurse) or control (standard follow-up with five routine doctor visits). Patients in both groups had a computed tomography (CT) at 1 and 3 years. The primary outcome (HRQoL) was assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - colorectal (FACT-C) score (Ward et al. in Qual Life Res. 8(3):181-95, 18). Secondary outcomes were functional measures, patient involvement and satisfaction and cancer recurrence at 3 years.
resultsFrom Feb 2016 to Aug 2018, 336 patients were included of whom 248 completed 3 years of follow-up. Between-group differences were found neither for the primary endpoint, nor for functional outcomes. The recurrence rate did not differ between the groups. Patient involvement and satisfaction were higher in the intervention group with statistical significance in almost half of the items.
conclusionsWe found no effect on HRQoL and symptom burden from patient-led follow-up, although it may improve patient-perceived involvement and satisfaction. IMPLICATIONS FOR CANCER SURVIVORS: The findings in this study suggest that patient-led follow-up is a more tailored approach to meet cancer survivors' needs and might improve their ability to cope with survivorship. CLINICALTRIALS: GOV IDENTIFIER: R97-A6511-14-S23.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.