Physician- and patient-reported symptom concordance and association with quality of life in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the association of discordance in patient- and physician-reported symptoms on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Patients & methods: Data were drawn from a point-in-time survey of physicians and patients conducted in Germany, Italy and Spain (October 2018 – January 2019). Physicians and their consulting patients independently reported baseline characteristics, symptoms, treatment history and satisfaction, and HRQoL derived using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Hepatobiliary (FACT-Hep) questionnaire. Results: Of 486 patients analysed, tiredness (73.3%, 73.7%), pain/aches (67.7%, 66.9%) and weight/appetite loss (54.3%, 53.7%) were the most common and concordant patient and physician-reported symptom domains, respectively. The symptom domains showing the largest discordance were reflux/indigestion (14.6%, 5.1%), neurological (11.9%, 5.6%), dermatological (9.3%, 6.2%) symptoms and jaundice (4.7%, 10.3%). Reduced HRQoL was observed with increasing symptom-reporting discordance. Conclusion: Further studies should investigate how symptom-reporting discordance influences patient satisfaction and HRQoL.