Understanding the Impact of Multiple Symptoms: A Symptom Burden Consortium

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The assessment of certain symptoms in cancer patients such as pain and depression is relatively mature within the cancer population; however, cancer patients and cancer survivors often have other distressing symptoms, such as cachexia, sleep disturbance, fatigue, and cognitive impairment. Measurement of these symptoms is evolving but is often less clearly delineated. Measuring any one of those symptoms may fall short of capturing the burden of distress that the patient is experiencing. Thus, measuring multiple symptoms simultaneously, both in practice and in research, is an area in need of further investigation. This consortium, organized by the Department of Symptom Research, at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, provides a venue for scientific presentations and collaborative discussions on the development of coherent measurement methods that will allow comparison of symptom burden across clinical trials, epidemiologic studies, and clinical practice. The specific aims of this conference are: To specifically delineate the concept of symptom burden; To provide a collaborative discussion among pharmaceutical industry scientists, federal policy makers, and academic research investigators about improving the scientific infrastructure to manage the complex problems caused by multiple symptoms.; To stimulate collaborative and interdisciplinary research to better understand the etiologic mechanism of multiple symptoms.; To examine and standardize the measurement methods for specific symptoms within the context of a high burden of illness.; To compose a state of the science document, summarizing the recommendations for standardizing measurement methods of specific symptoms within the context of a high burden of illness. The document will be a collaborative effort among consortium participants, and will be submitted to a leading scientific peer-reviewed journal.