Host factors, behaviors, and clinical trials: opportunities and challenges

Dynamics of Long-Term Patient-Reported Quality of Life and Health Behaviors After Adjuvant Breast Cancer Chemotherapy

We aimed to characterize long-term quality of life (QOL) trajectories among patients with breast cancer treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and to identify related patterns of health behaviors.

Research Priorities, Measures, and Recommendations for Assessment of Tobacco Use in Clinical Cancer Research

There is strong evidence that cigarette smoking causes adverse outcomes in people with cancer. However, more research is needed regarding those effects and the effects of alternative tobacco products and of secondhand smoke, the effects of cessation (before diagnosis, during treatment, or during survivorship), the biologic mechanisms, and optimal strategies for tobacco dependence treatment in oncology. Fundamentally, tobacco is an important source of variation in clinical treatment trials. Nevertheless, tobacco use assessment has not been uniform in clinical trials. Progress has been impeded by a lack of consensus regarding tobacco use assessment suitable for cancer patients. The NCI-AACR Cancer Patient Tobacco Use Assessment Task Force identified priority research areas and developed recommendations for assessment items and timing of assessment in cancer research. A cognitive interview study was conducted with 30 cancer patients at the NIH Clinical Center to evaluate and improve the measurement items. The resulting Cancer Patient Tobacco Use Questionnaire (C-TUQ) includes "Core" items for minimal assessment of tobacco use at initial and follow-up time points, and an "Extension" set. Domains include the following: cigarette and other tobacco use status, intensity, and past use; use relative to cancer diagnosis and treatment; cessation approaches and history; and secondhand smoke exposure. The Task Force recommends that assessment occur at study entry and, at a minimum, at the end of protocol therapy in clinical trials. Broad adoption of the recommended measures and timing protocol, and pursuit of the recommended research priorities, will help us to achieve a clearer understanding of the significance of tobacco use and cessation for cancer patients.

Cognitive testing of tobacco use items for administration to patients with cancer and cancer survivors in clinical research

BACKGROUND

To the authors' knowledge, there are currently no standardized measures of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure in patients diagnosed with cancer, and this gap hinders the conduct of studies examining the impact of tobacco on cancer treatment outcomes. The objective of the current study was to evaluate and refine questionnaire items proposed by an expert task force to assess tobacco use.

METHODS

Trained interviewers conducted cognitive testing with cancer patients aged ≥21 years with a history of tobacco use and a cancer diagnosis of any stage and organ site who were recruited at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Iterative rounds of testing and item modification were conducted to identify and resolve cognitive issues (comprehension, memory retrieval, decision/judgment, and response mapping) and instrument navigation issues until no items warranted further significant modification.

RESULTS

Thirty participants (6 current cigarette smokers, 1 current cigar smoker, and 23 former cigarette smokers) were enrolled from September 2014 to February 2015. The majority of items functioned well. However, qualitative testing identified wording ambiguities related to cancer diagnosis and treatment trajectory, such as "treatment" and "surgery"; difficulties with lifetime recall; errors in estimating quantities; and difficulties with instrument navigation. Revisions to item wording, format, order, response options, and instructions resulted in a questionnaire that demonstrated navigational ease as well as good question comprehension and response accuracy.

CONCLUSIONS

The Cancer Patient Tobacco Use Questionnaire (C-TUQ) can be used as a standardized item set to accelerate the investigation of tobacco use in the cancer setting. Cancer 2016;122:1728-34. © 2016 American Cancer Society.

Cognitive effects of cancer systemic therapy: implications for the care of older patients and survivors

The number of patients with cancer who are age 65 years or older (hereinafter "older") is increasing dramatically. One obvious aspect of cancer care for this group is that they are experiencing age-related changes in multiple organ systems, including the brain, which complicates decisions about systemic therapy and assessments of survivorship outcomes. There is a consistent body of evidence from studies that use neuropsychological testing and neuroimaging that supports the existence of impairment following systemic therapy in selected cognitive domains among some older patients with cancer. Impairment in one or more cognitive domains could have important effects in the daily lives of older patients. However, an imperfect understanding of the precise biologic mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment after systemic treatment precludes development of validated methods for predicting which older patients are at risk. From what is known, risks may include lifestyle factors such as smoking, genetic predisposition, and specific comorbidities such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Risk also interacts with physiologic and cognitive reserve, because even at the same chronological age and with the same number of illnesses, older patients vary from having high reserve (ie, biologically younger than their age) to being frail (biologically older than their age). Surveillance for the presence of cognitive impairment is also an important component of long-term survivorship care with older patients. Increasing the workforce of cancer care providers who have geriatrics training or who are working within multidisciplinary teams that have this type of expertise would be one avenue toward integrating assessment of the cognitive effects of cancer systemic therapy into routine clinical practice.

Cigarette smoking, physical activity, and alcohol consumption as predictors of cancer incidence among women at high risk of breast cancer in the NSABP P-1 trial

BACKGROUND

NSABP P-1 provides an opportunity to examine the association of behavioral factors with prospectively monitored cancer incidence and interactions with tamoxifen.

METHODS

From 1992 to 1997, 13,388 women with estimated 5-year breast cancer risk greater than 1.66% or a history of lobular carcinoma in situ (87% younger than age 65; 67% postmenopausal) were randomly assigned to tamoxifen versus placebo. Invasive breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, and endometrial cancer were analyzed with Cox regression. Predictors were baseline cigarette smoking, leisure-time physical activity, alcohol consumption, and established risk factors.

RESULTS

At median 7 years follow-up, we observed 395, 66, 35, and 74 breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, and endometrial cancer, respectively. Women who had smoked were at increased risk of breast cancer (P = 0.007; HR = 1.3 for 15-35 years smoking, HR = 1.6 for ≥ 35 years), lung cancer (P < 0.001; HR = 3.9 for 15-35 years, HR = 18.4 for ≥ 35 years), and colon cancer (P < 0.001; HR = 5.1 for ≥ 35 years) versus never-smokers. Low activity predicted increased breast cancer risk only among women assigned to placebo (P = 0.021 activity main effect, P = 0.013 activity-treatment interaction; HR = 1.4 for the placebo group) and endometrial cancer among all women (P = 0.026, HR = 1.7). Moderate alcohol (>0-1 drink/day) was associated with decreased risk of colon cancer (P = 0.019; HR = 0.35) versus no alcohol. There were no other significant associations between these behaviors and cancer risk.

CONCLUSION

Among women with elevated risk of breast cancer, smoking has an even greater impact on breast cancer risk than observed in past studies in the general population.

IMPACT

Women who smoke or are inactive should be informed of the increased risk of multiple types of cancer.

Cognitive effects of cancer and its treatments at the intersection of aging: what do we know; what do we need to know?

There is a fairly consistent, albeit non-universal body of research documenting cognitive declines after cancer and its treatments. While few of these studies have included subjects aged 65 years and older, it is logical to expect that older patients are at risk of cognitive decline. Here, we use breast cancer as an exemplar disease for inquiry into the intersection of aging and cognitive effects of cancer and its therapies. There are a striking number of common underlying potential biological risks and pathways for the development of cancer, cancer-related cognitive declines, and aging processes, including the development of a frail phenotype. Candidate shared pathways include changes in hormonal milieu, inflammation, oxidative stress, DNA damage and compromised DNA repair, genetic susceptibility, decreased brain blood flow or disruption of the blood-brain barrier, direct neurotoxicity, decreased telomere length, and cell senescence. There also are similar structure and functional changes seen in brain imaging studies of cancer patients and those seen with "normal" aging and Alzheimer's disease. Disentangling the role of these overlapping processes is difficult since they require aged animal models and large samples of older human subjects. From what we do know, frailty and its low cognitive reserve seem to be a clinically useful marker of risk for cognitive decline after cancer and its treatments. This and other results from this review suggest the value of geriatric assessments to identify older patients at the highest risk of cognitive decline. Further research is needed to understand the interactions between aging, genetic predisposition, lifestyle factors, and frailty phenotypes to best identify the subgroups of older patients at greatest risk for decline and to develop behavioral and pharmacological interventions targeting this group. We recommend that basic science and population trials be developed specifically for older hosts with intermediate endpoints of relevance to this group, including cognitive function and trajectories of frailty. Clinicians and their older patients can advance the field by active encouragement of and participation in research designed to improve the care and outcomes of the growing population of older cancer patients.

Associations between cigarette smoking status and colon cancer prognosis among participants in North Central Cancer Treatment Group Phase III Trial N0147

PURPOSE

By using data from North Central Cancer Treatment Group Phase III Trial N0147, a randomized adjuvant trial of patients with stage III colon cancer, we assessed the relationship between smoking and cancer outcomes, disease-free survival (DFS), and time to recurrence (TTR), accounting for heterogeneity by patient and tumor characteristics. PATIENTS AND METHODS Before random assignment to infusional fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) or FOLFOX plus cetuximab, 1,968 participants completed a questionnaire on smoking history and other risk factors. Cox models assessed the association between smoking history and the primary trial outcome of DFS (ie, time to recurrence or death), as well as TTR, adjusting for other clinical and patient factors. The median follow-up was 3.5 years among patients who did not experience events.

RESULTS

Compared with never-smokers, ever smokers experienced significantly shorter DFS (3-year DFS proportion: 70% v 74%; hazard ratio [HR], 1.21; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.42). This association persisted after multivariate adjustment (HR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.49). There was significant interaction in this association by BRAF mutation status (P = .03): smoking was associated with shorter DFS in patients with BRAF wild-type (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.66) but not BRAF mutated (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.50 to 1.29) colon cancer. Smoking was more strongly associated with poorer DFS in those with KRAS mutated versus KRAS wild-type colon cancer (HR, 1.50 [95% CI, 1.12 to 2.00] v HR, 1.09 [95% CI, 0.85 to 1.39]), although interaction by KRAS mutation status was not statistically significant (P = .07). Associations were comparable in analyses of TTR.

CONCLUSION

Overall, smoking was significantly associated with shorter DFS and TTR in patients with colon cancer. These adverse relationships were most evident in patients with BRAF wild-type or KRAS mutated colon cancer.