The Spinal Chordoma Patient Reported Outcome Survey (spCPROS): a patient-centered, disease-specific tool for assessing quality of life in spinal chordoma patients.

PURPOSE

Chordomas present most frequently in the lumbosacral spine. Spinal chordomas and treatment sequelae significantly affect quality of life (QOL) due to proximity of major neurovascular structures and the aggressive management required. However, since there are no validated instruments for this population, we aimed to develop a novel QOL metric for spinal chordoma patients.

METHODS

Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts from 27 chordoma patients identified common symptoms categorized into 7 themes. Seventy-nine items from existing instruments addressing these themes formed an initial questionnaire distributed to 26 different spinal chordoma patients and 11 providers. Respondents rated items' relevance on a 5-point Likert scale. An average rating above 3.0 met the relevance threshold. Scores were compared between patients and providers, and mobile spine and sacrum lesions using two-sided Mann-Whitney U-tests (significance level: 0.05).

RESULTS

Forty-seven items surpassed the threshold. We removed redundant items to create the 35-item Spinal Chordoma Patient Reported Outcome Survey (spCPROS). These items were categorized in 8 patient-facing domains: general(3), mood(7), daily activities(6), pain(4), sleep(4), sensory and motor(9), and social activities(2). The categories with the most items with significant patient-provider discrepancies included mood(42%), sensory and motor(44%), pain(50%), and social activities(50%). Four items, including bladder control (3.53 vs. 1.90, p = 0.03) and bowel incontinence (4.07 vs. 1.70, p < 0.01), were more relevant to sacral lesions than mobile spine lesions.

CONCLUSION

We developed a patient-centered tool for measuring QOL specific to spinal chordomas. Utilizing the spCPROS in preoperative and postoperative clinical encounters may allow clinicians to effectively assess symptom burden and provide guidance for high-quality patient-centered care.