Evaluating the Burden of Symptoms Patients Develop After Treatment for Colorectal Cancer

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) survival is improving rapidly due to advances in treatments that involve radiotherapy, chemotherapy and novel biological agents in addition to surgery. This comes at the price of living with chronic symptoms. There is good evidence that for many patients these symptoms become part of everyday life and are tolerated even when severely limiting daily activities. Clinicians often fail to appreciate the impact of these problems, as the focus of follow up tends to be on cancer recurrence. The aim of this research is to understand further the different symptoms that colorectal cancer patients develop post treatment and how these are addressed in follow up consultations in secondary care. Using this information, a new questionnaire will be developed for specific use with this patient cohort that is hoped will lead to earlier access to specialist services. Methods: (1) A systematic review of the non-gastrointestinal symptoms colorectal cancer patients develop and how these are assessed or recorded. (2) A qualitative study of patients’ perceptions of post-colorectal cancer treatment symptoms and their management. (3) A post-colorectal cancer treatment symptom questionnaire development and piloting. Impact on practice: This study will address the gap in the literature on understanding the symptom burden in CRC patients and lead to future work that will focus on the investigation pathway and management of these patients. Discussion or conclusion: The research is novel in its aim of developing a questionnaire/tool aimed at identifying patients with symptoms following CRC treatment, a resource that currently does not exist