Interdisciplinary documentation of treatment side effects in oncology. Present status and perspectives.

BACKGROUND

The documentation of acute and chronic treatment sequelae is a decisive precondition for the appropriate evaluation of the treatment quality of any cancer therapy.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Interdisciplinary (inter)national efforts have resulted in a new consensus for recording of treatment sequelae in oncology. While the acute treatment side effects (day 1 to 90 after treatment) are recommended to be documented and evaluated using the Common Toxicity Criteria (CTC), for the chronic treatment side effects (day 91 and thereafter) the Late Effect Normal Tissue (LENT) criteria are to be implemented. The latter classification system allows to differentiate between the Subjective, Objective, Management and Analytic (SOMA) toxicity aspects. Both classification systems can be implemented not only for clinical applications using radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone but also for combinations with each other or with other treatment modalities. This allows for an effective interdisciplinary comparison between different treatment concepts not only within each institution but also in multicenter trials.

CONCLUSIONS

Prospective documentation and evaluation of treatment toxicity in oncology should be intensified and systematically included in future mono- and multi-institutional clinical trials.