Health-related quality of life also favored atezolizumab, with either clinically meaningful improvements or maintenance observed across all functioning domains and symptom scales, while chemotherapy was associated with clinically meaningful deteriorations in several functioning domains and symptoms.

The BRIGHTLIGHT study has found that adolescent and young adult cancer patients, including those with testicular cancer and other germ cell tumors, present with a wide range and combination of cancer symptoms.

“Current management guidelines advise closely monitoring patients for signs and symptoms of interstitial lung disease or pneumonitis, immediately and actively managing all suspected events with corticosteroids, and delaying or stopping trastuzumab deruxtecan,” write the investigators.

People with cancer who have received COVID-19 vaccination are significantly less likely to experience persistent symptoms after recovery than unvaccinated individuals, irrespective of viral strain, suggest OnCovid data.

The oral nonhormonal agent Q-122 appears to be an efficacious and well tolerated option for the control of vasomotor symptoms in women with breast cancer receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy, suggest phase 2 trial data.

Some symptoms experienced during preventive tamoxifen therapy and attributed to the medication could be age-related menopausal changes, say researchers who found an association between experiencing such symptoms early during treatment and reduced long-term adherence.

For patient-reported outcomes, the investigators observed a general trend toward greater improvements in the cemiplimab arm versus placebo, including a significantly greater reduction in pain symptoms.

Median Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite Short Form (EPIC-26) scores at 2 years were comparable between the treatment arms for urinary incontinence, irritative or obstructive urinary symptoms, and the bowel, sexual and hormone composite scales.

However, Johnson pointed out that the study was not adequately powered to detect OS differences and that 34% of participants in the docetaxel group subsequently received a KRAS G12C inhibitor Among the patient-reported outcomes analyzed, the researchers found that the time to deterioration in global health status, physical functioning, and cancer-related symptoms (dyspnea and cough) were significantly delayed with sotorasib relative to docetaxel.

Eleven patients with pneumonitis presented with symptoms, most commonly dyspnea (50.0%), fever (22.2%), and cough (16.7%), while the remaining seven were asymptomatic at the time of detection of the initial radiologic abnormality.

May 2022 saw the publication, in European Urology , of the patient-reported outcomes from this trial, which showed that health-related quality of life and time to deterioration of disease-related symptoms were similar for the maintenance avelumab plus BSC and BSC alone groups.

Commenting on the research to the press, Paul Pharoah, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, said the study findings “are reassuring for women who get menopausal symptoms as a result of treatment of their breast cancer with tamoxifen.”

“This study’s findings suggest that it is important that shared decision-making among patients with prostate cancer includes discussion of late toxic effects, including the risk of developing a second primary cancer, and that the possibility of developing a second primary cancer after radiotherapy be considered during evaluation of symptoms among survivors,” concludes the team. medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare Ltd. © 2022 Springer Healthcare Ltd, part of the Springer Nature Group JAMA Netw Open 2022; 5 : e2223025

The researchers report that most scores on the EORTC Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30), EQ-5D visual analog rating scale (VAS), and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Kidney Cancer Symptom Index–Disease-Related Symptoms (FKSI–DRS) questionnaires either improved or remained stable in both treatment arms after 30 weeks of treatment.

Pembrolizumab therapy was discontinued and patients were successfully treated with oral prednisolone 40 mg/day that was tapered off over a month, although the older man required a second 3-month course of corticosteroids after symptoms recurred.