Implementation of Quality of Life Diagnostics and Therapy

August 31, 2005 updated by: Tumor Center Regensburg

Enhancing the Status of Quality of Life Diagnostics in Caring for Breast Cancer Patients: Results From a Multilevel Implementation Study in a Regional Tumor Centre

Implementation and Evaluation of Implementation of Quality of Life Diagnostics and Therapy in Individual Patients with Breast Cancer. A prospective study including 170 patients, 5 clinics and 38 general practitioners as coordinating doctors for quality of life therapies. Correlational study including several comparisons such as patients and their doctors.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Improving cancer patients' quality of life (QL) requires that QL-diagnostics, the availability of QL-enhancing treatment options and treatment decisions are being integrated into a clinical path. This description presents the development and implementation of such a clinical path in the Tumorcenter Regensburg.

The acting persons and institutions in this clinical path are the breast cancer patients, the hospitals, the family doctors or gynaecologists, and a QL-study team. Starting point is the QL-assessment either in the hospital or in doctors' practice (EORTC QLQ-C30 plus BR-23). The caring physician documents the patients' health status. Based on these two pieces of information, the QL-study team writes up a medical/QL-opinion plus therapy recommendation. This report is sent to the caring physician. The effectiveness of the therapy recommendation is assessed in the following QL-assessment. This clinical path is implemented via three interrelated methods of implementation: local opinion leaders, outreach visits, and quality circle.

A total of 38 physicians were made familiar with QL-diagnostics through outreach visits, and 12 opinion leaders were identified and convinced to support this project. The quality circle provided regular CME meetings on QL-enhancing therapy options (pain control, psychotherapy, physiotherapy, nutrition, social rehabilitation). A total of 170 QL-reports were sent to physicians. All 38 doctors found the QL-profiles comprehensible and the therapy recommendations clinically relevant. The most common QL-problems were emotional functioning, fatigue, and arm/shoulder problems.

QL-diagnostics is a new way to individualise and to rationalise patient care. It transforms the QL-concept into a decision-relevant, integral part of a clinical path that aims to provide high quality patient care.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment

190

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Germany
    • Bavaria
      • Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany, 93053
        • Tumorzentrum Regensburg

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All patients with primary breast cancer in the county of Regensburg, Amberg and Sulzbach-Rosenberg in the year 2003 to June 2004 submitted by coordinating physicians who were trained in quality of life questionnaires and profiles.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Secondary breast cancer, patients who refused to participate, patients incapable of filling out questionnaires, male patients, pregnant patients, age below 18 yrs.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Tumor Center Regensburg

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Monika KS Klinkhammer-Schalke, MD, Tumor Center Regensburg
  • Principal Investigator: Michael MK Koller, Ph.D., University of Marburg, Institut of Theoretical Surgery
  • Principal Investigator: Brigitte BE Ernst, MD, General Practitioner, Bad Abbach
  • Principal Investigator: Ferdinand FH Hofstädter, MD, Prof., Tumor Center Regensburg
  • Principal Investigator: Wilfried WL Lorenz, MD, Prof., Tumor Center Regensburg

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

December 1, 2002

Study Completion

June 1, 2004

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 31, 2005

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 31, 2005

First Posted (Estimate)

September 1, 2005

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

September 1, 2005

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 31, 2005

Last Verified

August 1, 2005

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • TUZ-QL-IP-03
  • 3.5/8203-1/117/02

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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