Survivorship Care Plans for HCT Recipients Reduce Cancer Treatment Distress

According to results of a randomized, multicenter study, hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) patients receiving post-transplant survivorship care plans (SCPs) had significantly lower levels of cancer treatment distress, compared to HCT recipients receiving routine post-transplant care.

Researchers studied 458 adult HCT survivors from 17 transplant centers who were 1-5 years post-transplant, proficient in English and without relapse or second cancers. To increase generalizability, recipients with any diagnosis, HCT/donor type and conditioning regimen were eligible.

SCPs were automatically generated using patient-specific clinical data submitted by transplant centers to the CIBMTR® (Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research®). Individualized SCPs included specific patient risk factors and treatment exposures, including age, sex, HCT type, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and use of total body irradiation or steroids.

Patients were then randomized to SCP (n=231) or routine care (n=227) per their transplant center.

Baseline and phone surveys at 2 weeks and 6 months assessed patient-reported outcomes, and measured cancer treatment distress, knowledge of transplant exposures, health behaviors, confidence in survivorship information, health care utilization and general health self-efficacy.

The significant reduction in cancer treatment distress in transplant recipients receiving SCPs was independent of sex, transplant type, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) status, diagnosis and health literacy.

The researchers concluded that automatically generated individualized SCPs based on patient risk factors and treatment exposures can be generated from a centralized clinical registry and that this method of creating SCPs can reduce the burden on health care professionals to create such plans.

Majhail NS, et al. Abstract oral presentation, 2017 ASH annual meeting

Press release on these research results


Related Resources