Quality of life assessments in clinical practice using either the EORTC-QLQ-C30 or the SEIOQL-DW: a randomized study

Monitoring health as an opportunity to categorize preventative and early-treatment actions in a self-care journey: our experience with a Healthcare Magenta Scorecard

Background

Applying a digital health intervention to measure health and wellbeing status offers opportunities to guide and augment healthcare and promotion. In our scenario, we consider mainly digital-native patients and present an evaluation of a new Healthcare Magenta Scorecard towards this end.

Methods

Grounded in the six domains of health and promotion (physical activity; sleep quality; nutrition; habits/lifestyle; mental health; quality of life) we developed a health Magenta Scorecard (Magenta Score), a mobile based Electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (e-PRO) that measures patients health and wellbeing every 3-5 months. The Magenta Scorecard was derived from previously published evidence-based instruments. We collected data as patients were onboarded into our healthcare system (T0 and T1, time span between measurements, 141 days) and provided correlations among our domains of care.

Results

A total of 1,622 participants responded to T0 and T1 our Magenta Scorecard. Participants mean age was 31.3 [95% confidence interval (CI): 31.2-31.5] years and female (63.4%). Fifty-five percent (n=892) of our sample were categorized as relating to Health and Wellbeing promotion, 8.5% (n=138) disease management, 35.7% (n=579) self-care care support and only 0.8% (n=13) pertained to case management. From our care coordination guided approach, our Magenta Scorecards reported mean improvement across the study cohort of 26 ± standard deviation (SD) points, from T0 (649, 95% CI: 643-656) to T1 (675, 95% CI: 668-682). Our Magenta Scorecard domains had significant, albeit weak spearman correlations.

Conclusions

We demonstrated our Magenta Scorecard rationale and its guided approach. The Magenta Scorecard displayed adequate responsiveness and was significantly correlated across all of the domains investigated. Further prospective research is needed to validate our results in the long term.

Clinical Effects of Jiawei Danggui Beimu Kushen Pills in the Treatment of Prostate Cancer and Their Influence on the Expression of Serum Prostate Specific Antigen

Objective

To observe the clinical effects of Jiawei Danggui Beimu Kushen pills in treating prostate cancer and their influence on the expression of serum prostate specific antigen.

Methods

A total of 234 prostate cancer patients were selected and randomly divided into observation group and control group, with 117 cases in each group. The control group was given oral bicalutamide tablets, while the observation group was treated with Jiawei Danggui Beimu Kushen pills on the basis of the control group. The treatment efficacy, IPSS score, TCM syndrome score, VAS score, quality-of-life score, and immune function of the two groups were compared before and after treatment. The serum PSA and f-PSA levels of patients before treatment and after 30 days, 90 days, and 180 days of treatment in the two groups were compared. The five-year cumulative survival rate and the incidence of adverse reactions were compared between the two groups.

Results

After treatment, the total effective rate of the observation group was 88.03% (103/117), which was higher than that of the control group 69.23% (81/117); the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). After treatment, the IPSS score, TCM syndrome score, and VAS score of the two groups were reduced, and those in the observation group were lower than those in the control group; the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). After treatment, the quality-of-life scores of the two groups increased, and the observation group was higher than the control group; the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Before treatment, there was no significant difference in serum PSA levels and f-PSA levels when comparing between the two groups of patients (P > 0.05). With the increase of treatment time, the two index levels of the two groups were gradually decreased. After 180 days of treatment, the two index levels of the two groups of patients were significantly lower than those before treatment, and the two index levels of the observation group were significantly lower than those of the control group; the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). After treatment, the levels of IgM and IgA in the two groups were decreased, and the level of IgG was increased. The difference between the two groups in the levels of each index before and after treatment was statistically significant (P < 0.05), and the difference between the two groups in the levels of each index after treatment was also statistically significant (P < 0.05). The five-year cumulative survival rate of the observation group was 69.23%, and the five-year cumulative survival rate of the control group was 46.15% (P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in the incidence of dizziness, fatigue, and gastrointestinal reactions (P > 0.05), but the difference in the incidence of dysuria as well as dysuria and hematuria was statistically significant (P < 0.05).

Conclusion

Jiawei Danggui Beimu Kushen pills are effective in treating prostate cancer, which can effectively reduce the patients' IPSS score and TCM syndrome scores, relieve the pain, and improve the quality of life of patients. They also have a potential role in regulating serum PSA levels, clearing tumor lesions, reducing postoperative complications, and improving related symptoms.