Efficient assessment of the most important symptoms in advanced prostate cancer: the NCCN/FACT-P Symptom Index.

Owing to the spectrum of symptoms, side effects, and concerns in clinically advanced prostate cancer (PC), effective symptom assessment is imperative. In line with recent regulatory guidance on the development of patient-reported outcomes, we undertook a multistep/multistudy approach to develop and test a new symptom index (NCCN FACT-Prostate Symptom Index-17 that can be used to examine the effectiveness of noncurative treatments in advanced PC. This included significant input from two waves of expert medical providers (n=66 and 11, respectively) and two waves of patient engagement and testing (n=50 and 24, respectively). The resulting 17-item symptom index for advanced PC was then divided into sets or categories based on whether the symptoms are predominantly disease or treatment related. Preliminary reliability estimates suggest good internal consistency (α=0.86) and relationships with expected outside validity criteria are moderate to strong. This new tool may help clinicians and researchers quickly target and measure important symptoms and concerns in advanced PC, leading to increased knowledge of treatment effectiveness of noncurative therapies and improvements in the quality of patient care.