Assessing Oncology Patients' Perceptions Of Treatment Goals.

e19160 Background: Metastatic disease is generally treated with palliative intent, but a patient’s perception of this is highly variable and dependent upon multiple factors. Our study evaluated our patients’ understanding of their treatment goal and sought to identify factors affecting it. Methods: This was a prospective study of 111 consecutive patients with stage IV solid tumor malignancies at a single institution. Patients were given a survey during a routine follow up visit. Requested information included primary site of malignancy, stage, duration of treatment, whether they think the treatment is curative, and whether they think the treatment will help them live longer and/or relieve cancer-related symptoms. Patients also provided basic demographic information such as age, gender, marital status, race and education level. Their answers regarding cancer type, stage and length of treatment were compared with their medical records. Characteristics were compared to survey responses using Pearson’s chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test. Results: Median age was 62 years with 58.6% females. Sixty-five percent of patients were married and 55.9% had college education or higher. The primary malignancies consisted of breast, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, lung, sarcoma and skin. Sixty percent were metastatic at diagnosis, 27% of patients had received adjuvant therapy, and 49.5% of patients received two or more lines of therapy in the metastatic setting. Of all patients, 91.9% correctly identified their primary cancer but only 77.5% knew it was stage IV. Only 22.5% of patients knew their treatment was not curative while 32.4% believed it was and 45% did-not-know. Seventy-three percent thought treatment would help them feel better and 85.6% believed it would help them live longer. Lines of therapy received significantly affected whether a patient thought treatment would help alleviate symptoms. Cancer type was significantly associated with whether a patient believed treatment to be curative. Marriage, age, race and education did not significantly affect patients’ answers. Conclusions: Less than one-third of our patients receiving treatment with palliative intent reported that his/her treatment was not curative. Factors influencing a patient’s perception of treatment goals are many and include those specific to the patient, their cancer and their providers. Ongoing studies will focus on identifying more barriers affecting a patients’ perceived treatment intent and will explore possible solutions to overcoming them.