Project Description
Symptom Burden in Patients with Advanced Cancer and Bowel Obstruction
Many cancers
are incurable. In such situations
treatment may focus on improving the quality of life, in addition to improving
length of life. Surgeons are often
called upon to help patients with problems due to their cancer or cancer
treatment. For example, surgeons may be
asked to evaluate patients with incurable malignancies for abdominal pain,
bowel obstruction, wound problems, and intra-abdominal infections. Bowel obstruction is the most common
indication for and represents half of all palliative surgical
consultations. However, there are few
high quality studies that have appropriately described or assessed symptom
burden. In fact, there has never been a study that identified symptoms of
importance and created a symptom assessment form specifically for palliative
surgical intervention. The objective of
this application is to create and validate a survey to assess symptoms in patients
with an incurable cancer undergoing surgical evaluation for bowel obstruction. The results of this study will be used to
create a tool that can help surgeons across the world determine whether they
have helped their patients with surgery.
Patients will
undergo interviews to assess their symptoms and determine symptoms of
importance that could be used in a form of symptom assessment. An expert panel will then help determine
symptoms to be included in a form that is easy to administer. Finally, the proposed form will be
administered to patients with advanced cancer and bowel obstruction to
determine how well it assesses their symptom burden and quality of life.
The proposed
study is the first to attempt to create a form to assess patients with advanced
cancer and bowel obstruction. This study will build upon our extensive
preliminary data that has identified how difficult it is to assess symptom
improvement for patients with advanced cancer and bowel obstruction. The
findings from this study would provide a novel tool for some of the most difficult,
yet common, decision-making in cancer surgery.
Bio
Brian Badgwell, MD, MS is an associate professor of surgery at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Badgwell has a cancer-directed practice in gastric cancer at MD Anderson that incorporates recent progress in advanced laparoscopic surgery in the treatment of patients with gastric cancer. He is currently the principal investigator for a Phase II Trial at MD Anderson of laparoscopic hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemoperfusion for metastatic gastric cancer (NCT02092298). Dr. Badgwell also has a leadership role in the efforts to create an Acute and Palliative Surgical Oncology Service dedicated to the care of patients with advanced malignancies. He serves as an important practitioner role model in Surgical Oncology and is currently the Clinical Medical Director for The Mobile Procedure Team, a team of advanced practice providers that perform emergency room and bedside procedures such as paracentesis, lumbar puncture, central line placement, and port removal.
Email: bbadgwell@mdanderson.org