Development and Validation of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Pediatric Cancer Surgery

Dr. Roshni Dasgupta, M.D. – Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH

The diagnosis of cancer in a child or adolescent often requires chemotherapy and surgical procedures for treatment. The best patient outcomes cannot be achieved simply by looking at traditional medical history, lab tests, and imaging findings. In previous studies, families of children that have received cancer surgery have told us that they wished their care providers communicated the options for surgery thoroughly and listened more carefully. Understanding a child’s quality of life and the impact that the treatment of a childhood cancer has on the patient and family is essential to the obtain the best outcomes from surgery and overall treatment. When children undergo surgery for cancer, it's not just the medical outcomes that matter—how they feel and recover after surgery is equally important. This project aims to create a system that listens to what young patients and their families have to say about their experiences before and after surgery. By working directly with patients, we can make better decisions about their care, helping them recover more quickly and feel better overall. This project will support efforts to develop a tool that doctors can use to gather patient and family feedback, making sure every child receives care tailored to their unique needs and experiences. This will help us understand where there may be problems in the patient’s treatment journey and allow health care professionals to fix the issues before they impact long-term outcomes of treatment.