CHICAGO — Early palliative care delivered via video was as effective as in-person visits on quality-of-life (QoL) measures among patients with advanced lung cancer, according to the REACH-PC trial.
Further, patient and caregiver-reported satisfaction with care and patient-reported anxiety and depression symptoms did not differ between study groups randomized to video visits or in-person visits for their palliative care.
“The main takeaway is that palliative care led to equivalent benefits for patient-reported quality of life whether delivered either via video or in-person visits among adults with advanced lung cancer.,” said Joseph A. Greer, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
“The study findings underscore the potential to increase access to evidence-based early palliative care through telehealth delivery,” Greer said during a press briefing at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.
To assess QoL, trial patients completed the Adjusted Mean Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung (FACT-L), with higher scores indicating better QoL. The equivalence margin was an estimated difference in score on the FACT-L between groups of ±4 points. The observed adjusted FACT-L scores at 24 weeks were 99.7 in the video-visit group versus 97.7 in the in-person group, thereby meeting the criterion for equivalence (P=0.04).
About 41% of patients and 37% of caregivers in each study group reported satisfaction with care. Patient anxiety and depression scores were similar between the video-visit and in-person groups as well.
Caregiver attendance was greater in the in-person arm of the study, with 49.7% complying with the in-person visits, compared with 36.6% who attended the video visits (P
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