Patient-Reported Outcomes for Breast Cancer

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) provide insight into how patients perceive health and treatment effects, how treatments impact outcomes, and are helpful in determining how disease and surgical interventions impact many aspects of a patients’ life. Commonly utilized metrics include survival and disease control, degree of recovery and functional status, access to treatment, treatment-related complications, health-related quality of life, and long-term consequences of therapy. The key to value-based, patient-centered health care is systematically incorporating patient input into the measures that they consider to be the most important outcomes for a particular medical condition while minimizing costs of care. This manuscript reviews the development and validation of multiple available PROs in breast surgical oncology and reconstruction, their impact in improving patient-physician communication and treatment outcome, and potential for impacting reimbursement. The implementation of PROs can be complex and challenging and care must be taken to minimize the potential for survey fatigue by patients and the potential financial burden for implementation, maintenance, and analyses of collected data. Because there is an increased emphasis in providing high-value care for cancer patients, the widespread incorporation of transparent breast-specific PROs stratified by treatments received and disease stage will be essential in delivering exceptional quality care.