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Translation Requires Evidence: Does Cancer-Specific CGA Lead to Better Care and Outcomes?

Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: The field of geriatric assessment is crowded by a variety of assessment domains, a plethora of assessment tools, and research spanning diverse care settings. In their article published in this issue of the journal ONCOLOGY, Schubert, Gross, and Hurria have synthesized the evidence and propose a subset of commonly used functional assessment tools for assessing older adults with cancer.[1] Although the authors present a helpful summary of physical, cognitive, psychosocial, and other relevant domains and present a well-formed argument for their integration into the care of older cancer patients, their efforts represent only part of the information required for the translation of evidence into practice. Aging is a highly individualized and complex process. Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is multidimensional and identifies a range of patient factors that are used to formulate an individualized care plan for clinical management. Studies of CGA interventions in various forms and settings have shown positive health effects in older populations. [2–5] Unfortunately, the efficacy data currently available regarding CGA only allow for analysis of indirect evidence supporting the use of cancer-specific CGA.[6,7] Without cancer-specific CGA data on such outcomes as choice of treatment, treatment tolerance, treatment completion, survival, disease-specific survival, quality of life, hospitalizations, and nursing home admissions, and without studies that determine which domains (for both patient and caregiver) and which measures are most useful, we simply do not have the knowledge base to translate the use of cancer-specific CGA into evidence-based practice.
Source: PubMed
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W22612429
FWCI: 0.559
Cites: 15
Cited by: 7
Related to: 10