Daniel Flora, Medical Oncologist and Medical Director of Oncology Research at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“With ESMO coming up in October – let’s do patients better by not reporting subjective terms on treatment-related side effects as ‘tolerable’ or ‘manageable.’ Present your data – let the patients decide what is manageable.
Clinic Notes: Sugar-coating Side Effects
At ASCO or any other cancer research meeting, you will often see new treatment trials presented with side effects described as ‘tolerable’ or ‘manageable.’
Those are subjective words. They may sound reassuring in an abstract, but they do not always reflect what patients actually live with. Fatigue that lingers for months, neuropathy that affects how someone walks, or diarrhea that is persistent can feel very different from how they are framed on a presentation slide.
That is why the difference between subjective and objective reporting is so important. Objective data such as numbers, separated grades, and consistent criteria give us a clearer picture. Subjective descriptors blur it.
What feels acceptable to an investigator may feel entirely different to a patient experiencing it every day.
In my clinic, I try to be direct about this. If a side effect is common, I tell patients exactly how often I see it and what it actually looks like in daily life. That approach helps them decide for themselves what they can or cannot live with.
Patients who enroll in early trials take real risks to move cancer care forward. We owe them reporting that does not minimize what they endure. Numbers without spin and honesty without judgment is how we respect both the science and the patients at the center of it.”
More posts featuring Daniel Flora.