ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Few recent studies have examined patient reported outcomes (PROs) during pre- or post-operative radiation therapy (RT) for soft tissue sarcoma (STS), and none have used PROMIS. This study aims to examine PROMIS scores across peri-operative time points for patients receiving pre- or post-operative RT. METHODS: Anxiety, depression, pain interference, and physical function PROMIS domains were collected at the pre-operative (1), immediate post-operative (2), and post-treatment completion (3) timepoints for patients undergoing surgery and either pre-operative or post-operative RT. Median scores were compared between groups using the Kruskal-Wallis test. The reliable change index was used to determine minimum important change in PROMIS scores and to compare scores between timepoints. RESULTS: 95 patients were included (19 pre-operative, 76 post-operative). Both groups had significant decreases in function during treatment. Patients with wound complications were more likely to have significant increases in anxiety (36.4% vs. 8.3%; p = 0.020) and decreases in physical function (57.1% vs. 16.2%; p = 0.011) independent of RT timing. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates minimum significant change thresholds to detect PROMIS changes in STS patients undergoing pre- and post-operative radiotherapy. As expected, more patients with pre-operative RT than post-operative RT had wound complications (p = 0.06), but patients with complications in both groups had worse anxiety and function at the completion of treatment compared with those that did not. The association of wound complications with worse anxiety and physical function at completion of treatment should be considered when making individualized treatment recommendations regarding the timing of RT.
