Prof. Yolande Lievens underscores the need for an evidence-informed value scale for surgical and radiation oncology

Surgery and radiotherapy, two locoregional cancer treatments, are essential to help improve cancer outcomes, control and palliation. The continued evolution in treatment processes, techniques, and technologies—often at substantially increased costs—demands for direction on outcomes that are most valued by patients, and on the evidence that is required before clinical adoption of these practices. While for systemic anticancer treatments, several value scales or frameworks are in place, this is not the case for the locoregional therapies such as surgery and radiotherapy. Therefore, Prof. Yolande Lievens and co-authors propose to develop a similar value scale for locoregional cancer treatments, broadening the evidence beyond clinical trials, a.o. to include real-world data, and focusing on the whole spectrum of patient-centered endpoints. Such a scale could help optimise patient access to high-value developments in surgery and radiotherapy, ultimately raise the evidence bar for new innovations introduced into clinical practice, and ensure that investment in research and development provides the opportunity for substantial improvement in cancer care.

You can read the original article, published in the top journal The Lancet Oncology here.