Early clinical successes are becoming more common in oncology; and as a result, there is a need for endpoints that can meaningfully describe outcomes among treated patients. In cases where overall survival (OS) data remain immature because of excellent patient outcomes, measuring disease-free survival (DFS) may be a useful clinical trial endpoint; particularly for adjuvant or potentially curative therapies. However, while there are indications that regulatory agencies may provide approvals taking evidence from DFS analyses into account, the views of reimbursement agencies on DFS evidence are less clear. Nor has the importance of this outcome from the patient perspective been investigated.

Because patient perceptions of DFS may be informative for decision makers in their understanding of its potential value we sought to study the importance of DFS as a treatment outcome among Canadian survivors of early-stage lung cancer. That research, conducted with colleagues from the Canadian Cancer Survivor Network has just been published in The Patient – Patient-Centered Outcomes Research. We invite you to read about our findings.