ReviewCancers2024
Do Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) Used Within Radiotherapy Clinical Trials Reflect the Impact of Treatment?
Review in Cancers, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Healing Beams: Radiation and Radiotherapy in Novels, Poems, Music, Film, Painting.Journal of medical radiation sciences · 2026Review
- Considering late effects costs in radiotherapy funding.The British journal of radiology · 2025Review
- Comment on "Postoperative functional complications and quality of life following robot-assisted prostatectomy and radiotherapy in localized prostate cancer: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis".Journal of robotic surgery · 2025Article
- Impacts of radiotherapy for gynaecological cancer on social, personal and sexual lives: A qualitative analysis of patient narratives.Women's health (London, England)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This is the first article that investigates whether the patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) used in clinical trials effectively capture the specific side-effects of radiotherapy and proton beam therapy (PBT) and provides context for researchers selecting PROMs for clinical trials. PROMs from radiotherapy trials were identified from previous research and assessed against the United Kingdom Royal College of Radiologists' guidelines for tumour-site-specific side-effects. The analysis revealed that none of the 51 identified PROMs captured the full range of side-effects, with only 25 addressing fatigue and 6 addressing radiation-induced skin reactions. Three PROMs failed to identify any common side-effects, and eight identified only one. Overall, 88% of PROMs lacked specificity to radiotherapy and PBT, posing a risk of missing significant differences between treatment techniques. This study emphasises the need for more targeted PROMs in future trials. Until new or improved PROMs are available, great thought and caution should be taken when selecting PROMs for trial endpoints.
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.