King, Madeleine

Abstract Background Febrile neutropenia (FN) is associated with a high risk for infections in patients receiving chemotherapy. Mortality estimates in pediatric patients with FN range from 0.4-3%. Extended infusion (EI) of beta-lactam antibiotics leads to improved pharmacodynamic parameters and is associated with enhanced antimicrobial activity. A recent study demonstrated significantly better overall treatment response in adult patients with documented infections and high-risk FN who received EI vs. standard infusion (SI) piperacillin-tazobactam. There are currently no studies evaluating clinical outcomes of EI beta-lactam use in pediatric patients with FN. Methods This study was a single-center retrospective cohort study with a time frame between September 2016-September 2022. The primary objective was to assess the time to fever resolution in patients with FN who received EI vs. SI of beta-lactam antibiotics. Secondary objectives included the difference in 30-day mortality and hospital length of stay (LOS) between the EI and SI groups. This study included patients admitted to pediatric hematology, oncology, or BMT services at Michigan Medicine who were (1) diagnosed with FN during hospital admission or admitted for FN following chemotherapy and (2) treated with EI or SI cefepime, piperacillin-tazobactam, or meropenem for at least 48 hours. Results A total of 87 patients were included in the study analysis (40 in the EI group and 47 in the SI group). Baseline characteristics were similar between the groups. There was no significant difference in the time to fever resolution for the cohort (48.5 vs 39.1 hours, p=0.373). There were numeric non-significant differences favoring EI for 30-day mortality (0% vs. 4%, p=0.496), and avoiding need to escalate antibiotic therapy due to treatment failure (7.5% vs. 17%, p=0.214). Conclusion The small sample size limited the ability to detect differences in time to fever resolution between EI and SI beta-lactams. Although not statistically significant, secondary endpoints showed numerically lower mortality and lower rates of therapy escalation in the EI group. Disclosures Madeleine King, PharmD, BCOP, Elsevier, Inc: Board Member

Background: Patient-reported outcome (PRO) data may be used at 2 levels: to evaluate impacts of disease and treatment aggregated across individuals (group-level) and to screen/monitor individual patients to inform their management (individual-level). For PRO data to be useful at either level, we need to understand their clinical relevance. Purpose: To provide clarity on whether and how methods historically developed to interpret group-based PRO research results might be applied in clinical settings to enable PRO data from individual patients to inform their clinical management and decision-making. Methods: We first differentiate PRO-based decision-making required at group versus individual levels. We then summarize established group-based approaches to interpretation (anchor-based and distribution based), and more recent methods that draw on item calibrations and qualitative research methods. We then assess the applicability of these methods to individual patient data and individual-level decision-making. Findings: Group-based methods provide a range of thresholds that are useful in clinical care: some provide screening thresholds for patients who need additional clinical assessment and/or intervention, some provide thresholds for classifying an individual’s level of severity of symptoms or problems with function, and others provide thresholds for meaningful change when monitoring symptoms and functioning over time during or after interventions. Availability of established cut-points for screening and symptom severity, and normative/reference values, may play into choice of PRO measures for use in clinical care. Translatability of thresholds for meaningful change is more problematic because of the greater reliability needed at the individual-level versus group-level, but group-based methods may provide lower bound estimates. Caution is needed to set thresholds above bounds of measurement error to avoid “false-positive changes” triggering unwarranted alerts and action in clinic. Conclusions: While there are some challenges in applying available methods for interpreting group-based PRO results to individual patient data and clinical care—including myriad contextual factors that may influence an individual patient’s management and decision-making—they provide a useful starting point, and should be used pragmatically.

Background There is currently a lack of consensus on how health-related quality of life and other patient-reported outcome measures in cancer randomized clinical trials are analyzed and interpreted. This makes it difficult to compare results across randomized controlled trials (RCTs) synthesize scientific research, and use that evidence to inform product labeling, clinical guidelines, and health policy. The Setting International Standards in Analyzing Patient-Reported Outcomes and Quality of Life Endpoints Data for Cancer Clinical Trials (SISAQOL) Consortium aims to develop guidelines and recommendations to standardize analyses of patient-reported outcome data in cancer RCTs. Methods and Results Members from the SISAQOL Consortium met in January 2017 to discuss relevant issues. Data from systematic reviews of the current state of published research in patient-reported outcomes in cancer RCTs indicated a lack of clear reporting of research hypothesis and analytic strategies, and inconsistency in definitions of terms, including “missing data,”“health-related quality of life,” and “patient-reported outcome.” Based on the meeting proceedings, the Consortium will focus on three key priorities in the coming year: developing a taxonomy of research objectives, identifying appropriate statistical methods to analyze patient-reported outcome data, and determining best practices to evaluate and deal with missing data. Conclusion The quality of the Consortium guidelines and recommendations are informed and enhanced by the broad Consortium membership which includes regulators, patients, clinicians, and academics.