UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Objective:The Functional Assessment of Anorexia and Cachexia Therapy (FAACT), a modification of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy General (FACT-G) has a validated 12-question anorexia subscale (A/CS – 12) which provides a reliable measurement of nutritional status. The length of A/CS – 12 may be burdensome for physicians and patients. Therefore, a Simplified Question Questionnaire was developed and validated against the A/CS – 12

Methods:A prospective crossover study of 100 cancer patients with or without anorexia was conducted. The Simplified Questionnaire consists of two questions: a numerical rating scale (0-10) and categorical scale for appetite loss (mild, moderate, or severe). Each subject completed both questionnaires upon enrollment and again one week later. To prevent the order of questionnaires from biasing results, we randomly changed the order with each interview session. Questionnaires were completed in person or by phone interview.

Results:The common cancer types were lung, gynecologic, breast, and gastrointestinal. Agreement between the simplified questionnaire and A/CS-12 at a single point in time was 0.64, with a 95-percent confidence interval of (0.63, 0.66). Rate of agreement over time is 0.53, with a 95-percent confidence interval of (0.41, 0.64). The agreement rate between the total FAACT score and the first question of the simplified questionnaire assessing appetite on a )-10 NRS is of the simplified questionnaire is 0.56, with a 95-percent confidence interval of (0.45, 0.66). The Simplified Anorexia Questionnaire correlated moderately with changes in the A/CS –12 . Survival data is presently being collected to determine which questionnaire better predicts survival since anorexia is a poor prognostic symptom.